


Enchanted

by twin_fics



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, M/M, Magic, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-06 17:14:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 26,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3142313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twin_fics/pseuds/twin_fics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once again, the boring academic year at the Magic School begins for Nino and his friends but this year is not as boring as Nino previously thought because this year... someone is trying to kill him!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by beastlover

“Wake up! Wake up!”  
  
“Nnnnngggrrrr,” Nino frowned and turned over in his bed trying to ignore the irritating voice.  
  
“WAKE UP! WAKE UP!”  
  
“Aaaaaaaargh! Shut up already!” he groaned, annoyed, covering his head with his sheets.  
  
“ **WAKE UP! WAKE UP** **!** ”  
  
“O.k., o.k.! I’m awake already. Are you happy now?” he growled, pushing away the sheets.  
  
He glared at the little, Doraemon-shaped, alarm clock which had woken him up and hit its head to stop the alarm with a little more force than it was necessary.  
  
“How I hate the first day of school! If only the summer holidays lasted a bit longer...” He drowsily rubbed his eyes and stretched his arms.  
  
After two whole minutes spent bitterly complaining about his unfair fate, he finally got out of his bed and entered the bathroom dragging his feet. Ten minutes later, he re-entered his bedroom feeling much more refreshed after taking a shower.  
  
“Now, where did I put my uniform last night?” Nino yawned, lazily scratching his belly with his hamburger hand. The young student looked around his bedroom trying to find the beige uniform that distinguished him as a medium grade student of general magic.  
  
“Aha! There you are!” he exclaimed, glimpsing the sleeve of his uniform under a pile of clothes.  
  
The student began to get dressed, pleased with the fact that he didn’t have to share his bedroom like all the other students. Belonging to one of the most admired and respected families of the nobility had its advantages. The generous monetary contributions his parents made to the school had helped too, of course.  
  
“I wonder if Mr. Tanaka will teach Healing Spells this year too, or if he retired during the summer holidays,” he pondered tying his yellow tie.  
  
Finally, he inspected his reflection in the mirror, carefully smoothing out a few wrinkles on the yellow stripe adorning the cuffs of his jacket.  
  
“Just in time for breakfast,” he smiled checking the hour in the little alarm clock before leaving his room.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
“Here, Nino! We’re here!”  
  
Nino scanned the majestic dinning hall full of students from different years, searching for the source of the voice. He easily found the lanky student dressed in a grey uniform with green motifs among the colourful crowd – the fact that his friend had been waving like crazy in his direction didn’t have anything to do with that, by the way.  
  
“Aiba! Behave yourself!” another student, dressed in a beige suit with purple motifs, hissed at the loud student when the latter almost hit him in the face.  
  
“Good morning,” Nino greeted his two friends, taking the seat they had reserved for him at one of the larger tables. “What have the good chefs prepared for breakfast on the first day of class?”  
  
“This time, they’ve surpassed themselves!” exclaimed Aiba delighted, “There’s a wide selection of fruit, bacon, sunny-side-up and boiled eggs, toasts, sausages, ome-”  
  
“O.k., o.k., I can see they've worked hard,” Nino interrupted him, helping himself to a boiled egg and some sausages.  
  
“I’m surprised you survived waking up early on the first morning after spending the whole holiday lazing around in your family’s manor. Was the experience fulfilling?” Jun mocked him.  
  
“Don’t remind me about it. I would do anything to avoid getting up early every morning” Nino sighed, peeling his boiled egg.  
  
The three friends kept chatting amicably until they were interrupted by the announcement broadcasted by the loudspeakers. “ _The welcoming speech will begin in the auditorium in ten minutes; attendance is mandatory for all students. I insist. The welcoming speech will be held in the auditorium in ten minutes; attendance is mandatory for al students._ ”  
  
“I suppose it’s too late to feign a stomach-ache, isn’t it? Maybe I should save that for Mr. Tanaka’s first class tomorrow,” Nino sighed, winking at Aiba.  
  
They reluctantly joined the rest of the students and slowly moved toward the auditorium.  
  
When they were about to enter the auditorium, someone suddenly bumped against Nino, almost knocking him over.  
  
“Oh! I-I’m really sorry!” the first year student dressed in a white uniform with blue motifs stuttered. “I-I was in a hurry and I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going, so I didn’t see you till it was too late and-” he nervously kept apologizing while he clumsily began to pick up the things he had been carrying before the collision.  
  
“O.k, o.k. I got it already! You can stop apologizing!” Nino growled kneeling beside the anxious young man with spiked hair and baby face. He hurriedly picked up the drawing notebook and the books that were scattered around them and piled them unceremoniously in the new student’s arms.  
  
“Aiba, Jun! Hurry up!” he impatiently exclaimed when he finished, entering the auditorium without looking back.  
Aiba and Jun sighed in unison.  
  
“Sorry, he hasn’t been trained to behave properly yet,” Jun explained to the new student with a mischievous wink. “We’re working on it, though.”  
  
“Please, forgive him. By the way, first year students are supposed to gather together there,” Aiba pointed to a corner of the auditorium where lots of students dressed in white uniforms had congregated.  
  
“Thanks a lot!” the short student smiled gratefully at them and hurried up towards the place Aiba had indicated.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
“Dear students, I want to welcome you to our school of magic. As you know, this is one of the most prestigious schools of magic in the country and…” the old, elegantly dressed man began his speech.  
  
“And here we go, the same old speech every year,” Nino yawned looking at the man on the platform.  
  
“This respected school has a history of more than a hundred years of success teaching the five branches of magic: Healing Arts, Potions, Illusion and Creation, Invocation and, finally, Offensive Magic.”  
  
“Sometimes I wonder if he has the opening speech recorded and he’s only lip-synching it,” he commented getting close to Jun who softly chuckled at Nino’s words.  
  
“Every year, the School welcomes with open arms our new students, eager to teach them the rudiments of magic…”  
  
Nino felt his eyes getting heavier with every passing second. He shook his head trying to chase away the drowsiness. _“I still don’t understand why I have to suffer this speech year after year. I’m in medium grade, for Pete’s sake! I know everything about the rudiments of the different magic branches already!”_  
  
“Studying magic is not an easy task, but it is a very rewarding one. All of you have been blessed with the capability to practice magic…”  
  
At this point, Nino gave up and began to doze, letting his head rest on Aiba’s shoulder. Aiba giggled and winked at Jun, who snorted, rolling his eyes.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
“I still don’t understand how you are supposed to follow in your father’s footsteps if you fall asleep during our Dean’s speech every year” Jun scolded Nino hours later while they were enjoying their lunch in the dinning hall. “The meetings the King holds with his advisors are much longer, you know?”  
  
“I know, I know… but I can’t help it,” Nino whined, “Every time I hear the Dean’s monotonous voice, I begin to feel drowsy and I fall asleep soon after.”  
  
“I can help you with that!” Aiba loudly exclaimed. “I have been working on a new potion to help people to stay awake for long periods of time-”  
  
“I don’t want it! I don’t care if you’re one of the most outstanding students in medium grade Potions!” Nino cried, “I’m not crazy enough to drink one of your concoctions!”  
  
“But-” Aiba tried to protest.  
  
“But nothing! Do I look like a guinea pig to you?”  
  
“O.k., o.k.” Aiba’s shoulders fell in defeat, “Umm, if you really don’t want it, you should stop drinking your orange juice”  
  
“W-What?” Nino exclaimed, his eyes darting to Aiba’s face, and then looking warily at his - almost empty - glass of juice.  
  
“The potion had a bad taste so I tried to camouflage it with orange juice and lots of sugar and…” Aiba apologized.  
  
“YOU MADE ME DRINK ONE OF YOUR CONCOCTIONS!!” Nino shouted, startling all the students around them.  
  
“Well… yes?”  
  
Nino launched himself towards his friend – screw that, his ex-friend - and began to choke him to death.  
  
“Nino! Stop!” Jun smacked Nino on the head and made him release their mutual friend, who was looking a bit purple.  
  
“Nino, you know this idiot wouldn’t make you drink something that might harm you,” Jun reassured the furious student putting his arm around his shoulders – more to hold him back than to calm him.  
  
“Aiba, don’t ever do it again. You must warn people before making them drink a potion you have prepared!” Jun frowned at the ashamed student.  
  
“Now, calm down both of you and let’s continue our lunch”  
  
They resumed their lunch in peace, even though Nino didn’t stop grumbling murderously every time he looked at his glass of juice.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
“I’m so glad the first day of classes has ended already,” Nino, relieved, sighed.  
  
He had returned to his bedroom after watching a movie in the communal room with Jun and Aiba, and was about to change into his pyjamas to get ready to sleep.  
  
“My mouth is so dry,” he complained, “Since I drank Aiba’s damned concoction, no matter how much water I drink, I always feel thirsty.”  
  
He looked around, searching for his bottle of water - he always had one in his room, just in case he got thirsty in the middle of the night.  
  
“Where is that stupid bottle? Didn’t I leave it on my bedside table this morning?” he scratched his head slightly confused.  
  
Finally, he found the bottle on a self, near the window, and emptied it in one gulp.  
  
“Doesn’t it taste a bit strange?” he grumbled, examining the bottle with a frown.  
Suddenly, his throat constricted painfully as if a ghostly hand were strangling him.  
  
“Wha-what is this?” he stuttered, breathing laboriously. His heart began to beat faster and faster and he had to lean on a wall for support. Nino fought to bring some air into his lungs, but a sharp pain in his stomach almost doubled him in half.  
  
He moaned in pain, clutching his stomach, feeling as if a furious serpent of pure fire were travelling through his insides, burning everything in its path.  
  
“P-Poison?!” the boy exclaimed, realizing too late the bitter after taste the water had left in his mouth.  
  
 _“I-I must cast a curative spell!”_ He thought, desperately trying to fight against the sudden dizziness that threatened to engulf him. Without warning, his knees failed and he fell over with a loud thud.  
  
“H-Help” he sobbed, shaken by painful spasms. _“I don’t... want to.... die yet.”_  
  
The darkness finally engulfed him and he lost consciousness.


	2. Chapter 2

Exactly at five o’clock, Ohno jumped out of his bed to get ready for his daily tasks. Even though he wasn’t completely awake, his body moved by itself after so many years of helping his family with the farm chores. He hurried towards the exit of his room, trying to reach the bathroom before his sister did, when he suddenly ran into a wall.  
  
“Ouch!” the poor boy exclaimed, rubbing his pained forehead. He slowly opened his eyes for the first time that morning, and looked around him with a confused expression.   
  
“Ah! Now I remember,” he slowly sat down on his bed, still rubbing his forehead. “I’m not at home any more. I live here, at magic the school now.”  
  
He slowly leaned back on his bed, remembering how he had ended up studying in the most prestigious school of magic in the entire kingdom.   
  
Only ten days ago, he had been a simple country boy, helping his family with their farm. He had spent his days peacefully, working in the fields or taking care of the farm animals. However, only a few days ago everything had changed in the blink of an eye.   
  
  
_[Ten days ago]_  
  
  
They were having breakfast when his father entered his house’s small kitchen holding a small piece of metal in his hand.  
  
“It’s broken,” he announced with a troubled expression, “and we haven’t a single spare piece to replace it.”  
  
“Huh? What’s that, dad?” his sister asked, looking with curiosity at the small piece.  
  
“It’s a piece of the combine harvester’s engine,” his father explained. “When I tried to start it this morning, it made a strange sound and then, a black cloud of smoke came out of the hood.”  
  
“If the combine harvester doesn’t work, how are we going to harvest the crops, darling?” his mother asked, worried, drying her hands on a dish towel.  
  
“We won’t be able to do it,” his father sighed, resigned, sitting down heavily in the nearest chair.  
  
“Why don’t you create it?” Ohno asked nonchalantly, his attention still focused on his breakfast.  
  
“What?” his father looked at him a bit surprised. “How can we create a piece like this if we aren’t metal crafters?”  
  
“Drawing it,” Ohno frowned, confused, looking back at him.  
  
“Drawing it?”  
  
Ohno nodded and left the kitchen in search of his drawing notebook. When he returned, he carefully examined the small piece and began to draw it in great detail.  
  
After finishing his drawing and making sure that the piece he had drawn was exactly equal to the one that was broken, he concentrated on his drawing. Soon, he felt the warm feeling that always enveloped him when he made real his pictures.  
  
When he opened his eyes, there was a piece, with a faint, blue glow surrounding it, on the table.  
  
“See?” he pointed to the little piece, “However, the piece won’t last long, only a few days,” he explained, raising his gaze from the piece to find his family staring at him with astonished expressions.  
  
“What?” he asked, puzzled.  
  
“H-How did you do that?” his father questioned him, his voice full of awe.  
  
“That?” Ohno shrugged his shoulders, dismissing the miraculous event, “I’ve been able to do that since I was a child… Y-You can’t?” he asked, feeling insecure for the first time in front of his family’s strange reaction.  
  
“You can do magic!” his sister exclaimed, clapping excitedly.  
  
“Magic? B-But I can’t heal!” he protested.  
  
“Satoshi, healing is only one of the multiple kinds of magic that exist in this world,” his mother kindly explained to him.” There are four more types of magic and… Well, it really doesn’t matter. They’ll explain it to you much better than I can.”   
  
“They?” the boy asked, still confused by the unexpected development of that morning’s events.  
  
“But of course, darling. You’ll need to receive proper education in magic!” she resolutely decided.  
  
His parents immediately took the young boy to the old scholar that taught healing spells in the nearest village’s school. They wanted him to test their son’s magical abilities. Furthermore, they needed advice about the next step they should take.  
  
“What a strange skill we have here,” the old man muttered after seeing a brief demonstration of Ohno’s ability, gently tugging at his long, white beard. “I think I’ll send my friend in the capital a letter about this. Please, wait until I have his answer.”  
  
Some days later, the old scholar visited their farm, bringing an elegant envelope with him.  
  
“I’ve excellent news. My friend, the principal of the most prestigious school of magic in the kingdom, has sent me a letter with an invitation addressed to your son,” he explained to Ohno’s family. “He’s really interested in your son’s extraordinary skill. The capability to practice blue magic from simple ideas it’s really rare. In this world, only a few can do it.”  
  
The scholar handed the envelope to his father. “My friend wants your son to attend his school. They’ll teach him all he needs to know about magic there.”  
  
“B-But the cost of enrolling him in that prestigious school…” his father stuttered.  
  
“Don’t worry about it!” the old man reassured Ohno’s parents. “He has granted your son a special scholarship. He will take care of everything.”   
  
And so, next morning, Ohno found himself leaving his house and his family behind to attend to a magic school in the capital.  
  
~~  
 _  
“The welcoming speech will begin in the auditorium in ten minutes; attendance is mandatory for all students. I insist. The welcoming speech will be held in the auditorium in ten minutes; attendance is mandatory for all students.”_  
  
“I know! I know!” Ohno exclaimed, hurriedly picking up his school materials from his desk.  
  
He ran through the maze-like corridors that led towards the auditorium, barely dodging the students from different years that he encountered in his way. Suddenly, a young boy dressed in a beige uniform with yellow motifs appeared out from nowhere. He desperately tried to correct his trajectory but it was in vain. He couldn't avoid colliding with him.  
  
“Oh! I-I’m really sorry!” Ohno apologized. “I-I was in a hurry and I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going, so I didn’t see you till it was too late and-”  
  
“O.k., o.k. I got it already! You can stop apologizing!” the other student growled, kneeling beside him. He hurriedly picked up Ohno’s books and piled them in his arms.  
  
“Aiba, Jun! Hurry up!” the young boy exclaimed and entered the auditorium without looking back. His friends grimaced and tuned towards Ohno.  
  
“Sorry, he hasn’t been trained to behave properly yet,” the tall student, with elegant features, apologized with a mischievous wink. “We’re working on it, though.”  
  
“Please, forgive him. By the way, first year students are supposed to gather together there,” the other student, dressed in a grey uniform with green motifs, pointed to a corner of the auditorium where lots of students dressed in white uniforms had congregated.  
  
“Thanks a lot!” Ohno smiled gratefully at them and hurried up towards the place they had indicated.  
  
He sat on a chair in front of the platform, nervously waiting for the opening speech.   
  
A few minutes later, an elegantly dressed old man appeared from one side of the platform and walked towards the podium situated in the centre of the platform.  
  
He silenced the student’s murmuring with a grandiloquent gesture and began his speech.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
“Excuse me, are you o.k.?” a deep voice woke Ohno from his peaceful slumber.  
  
“E-Eh?” he looked around, rubbing his eyes drowsily. “Where is everybody?” he asked the student dressed in a grey uniform with red motifs who had awoken him.  
  
“I suppose they went to enjoy their free time. Today, classes don’t start until the afternoon,” the student smiled. “My name is Sakurai Sho. I’m on the student committee. You’re a first year student, right?”  
  
“Yes, my name is Ohno Satoshi. I arrived yesterday evening.” Ohno answered, blushing. “I think I’ve missed the Dean’s speech,” he confessed, ashamed.  
  
“Hahaha! Don’t worry about it! He says the same thing every year” Sho laughed, winking at the embarrassed boy. “Do you want me to show you around? I’ll summarize his speech for you, if you’re interested”  
  
“Thanks! That would be of great help,” Ohno happily agreed, feeling at ease in this kind student’s company.  
  
“What do you know about magic?” Sho asked Ohno while they were exiting the auditorium.   
  
“Until ten days ago, I thought there was only one kind of magic, healing magic”, he apologetically answered, a bit ashamed of his own ignorance.  
  
“I see… Well, I’ll begin with the basics, then. There are five kinds of magic: Healing Arts, Potions, Illusion and Creation, Invocation, and Offensive Magic. First year students, dressed in white uniforms like you, have to study the rudiments of all of theses kinds of magic,” the member of the student committee explained to him while they were walking through the school’s enormous halls.  
  
“After their graduation, they can choose what they want to do next. They can choose to specialize in the branch of magic in which they are skilled, or they can keep studying all branches of magic in depth.”  
  
“O.k.” Ohno nodded, following Sho.  
  
“The classrooms are along this corridor,” Sho pointed to the entrance of a big corridor at the left side of the hall.  
  
“Each floor has it own classrooms for each branch of magic. Your classrooms are on the first floor and the second floor contains the classrooms for second year students.”   
  
They walked through the corridor leaving behind the classroom’s doors.   
  
“Why are the doors of the classrooms painted in different colours?” Ohno asked a bit confused.  
  
“Each branch has its own colour. They’re represented in those doors and in the motifs of the uniforms we use. Your colour, blue, signals that you’re skilled in the Illusion and Creation branch. I’m proficient in Invocation, so my colour is red,” he instructed Ohno, pointing to the red motives in his uniform. “Yellow is for Healing Arts, green is Potions and, finally, purple belongs to Offensive Magic. Besides, the general colour of the uniform shows the year you belong: white for first year, beige for the students that keep studying all branches of magic in depth and grey for the students, like me, who are specializing themselves in the branch of magic in which they’re skilled.” Sho patiently explained to him.  
  
Ohno nodded again, feeling a bit less confused about his new environment.  
  
They spent the rest of the morning walking through the different school buildings until Sho made sure that Ohno knew all that was needed for his new life in the school.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
Ohno, astonished, looked at the wide range of dishes that the school’s cafeteria offered for lunch to the students. He was about to choose a particularly delicious looking plate of cha-han when a high pitched yell startled him.   
  
“YOU MADE ME DRINK ONE OF YOUR CONCOCTIONS!!”   
  
Ohno quickly turned around to see the cause of the commotion. He recognized the student he had run into that morning at the entrance of the auditorium. The short student seemed to be really pissed off and was mercilessly trying to choke one of his friends. Another student – Ohno recognized him as one of the irate student’s friends – quickly stopped him and made him release the neck of his now almost purple friend.   
  
Looking at them, it was obvious that they were really good friends – in spite of the failed murder attempt. Ohno sighed, remembering his family and his friends back home. What would they be doing now? Feeling a bit homesick, he took a little sandwich and exited the dinning hall to eat outside, in the gardens that surrounded the school’s buildings.  
  
“How I wish I were home now,” he sighed, slowly munching his sandwich. “I’m all alone in my bedroom too… I would have preferred to share it with another student.”  
  
After some minutes pondering his situation, he came to the conclusion that it was useless to worry. It had been decided that he would be studying magic in that school for a year, at least. There was nothing he could do about that.  
  
“I’ll make new friends here!” he decided with resolution.   
  
Recovering his appetite, he returned to the dinning hall. With a bit of luck, that delicious cha-han would still be waiting for him.  
  
~~  
  
The next day, Ohno woke up at five o’clock again.  
  
“Hmmmm… maybe I should make a quick visit to the school’s kitchen,” he decided, hearing his stomach grumble, “but now is too early… I’ll wait for a bit.”  
  
He showered without haste and carefully dressed – tough the tie kept giving him trouble. At six, he exited his room and walked towards the school’s kitchen, passing some students that were walking down the corridor.   
  
Suddenly, he heard a big commotion and some things loudly crashing into the floor. Full of curiosity, he turned the corner and found the cause of the ruckus: a big cat was chasing a little mouse through the corridor, knocking over everything in its way.  
  
Making a quick decision, he ran after the two animals. When he caught up with them, the cat had the poor mouse trapped against the corner of the corridor and was about to finish it.  
  
With a smooth movement, Ohno caught the tail of the cat in the middle of its jump, effectively stopping it, and with his free hand he took the shivering mouse.  
  
He hastily released the furious cat, not without receiving a few deep scratches from the outraged beast.  
  
“Ouch!” he whined, moving away from the hissing cat, carefully holding the scared mouse.  
  
“Are you o.k.?” he asked the mouse, feeling its little heart beating rapidly against his hand. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you,” he muttered, soothingly caressing the poor animal with his thumb.  
  
The little mouse opened its eyes and looked directly into Ohno’s eyes. “You can trust me,” Ohno assured it with a nod.  
  
The small, brown mouse squinted with suspicion and began to shift, furiously trying to break free from Ohno’s grip.  
  
“Woah! What happened, little mouse? You don’t trust me? I’m not going to do you any harm,” Ohno strengthened his hold on the little animal and walked towards his bedroom.   
  
“Hmmm… now, what I’m going to do with you?” Ohno pondered aloud. The mouse moved more desperately, trying to bite him.  
  
“Hey!” Ohno protested and used his injured hand to hold more securely the lively animal. “Calm down, please. I have to get you a house and I can’t do it if you move so much.”  
  
He held the mouse with his left hand, grimacing when it bit him, and hastily drew a cage in his notebook. “Ouch! Don’t bite!” he scolded the little mouse.   
  
Finally, he put the finishing touches to his drawing. “Don’t complain later if the cage doesn’t suit your tastes!” he warned the anxious animal, making his picture real.  
  
When the metal cage appeared in front of them, the mouse froze, looking at the cage with his shinning, dark eyes wide open.  
  
“Do you like it?” Ohno asked, smiling at the little animal. The mouse returned his gaze with a surprised expression that was almost comical.  
  
“Don’t grow too fond of it because it will only last a few days,” he explained to the mouse. “I’ll search for a better – and more real – house for you in the mean time!” Ohno put the shocked mouse in the cage, closing its door.   
  
“I’ll bring you something delicious to eat after breakfast!” the young student promised the small rodent, filling the water trough before he left the room.  
  
The mouse didn’t pay him any attention and began to run fretfully around the cage, pointlessly biting its bars.  
  
 _“HOW IN THE HELL DID I GET TRAPPED HERE?!?!”_ Nino scratched his small ear, moving his whiskers anxiously.


	3. Chapter 3

_“I can believe I got trapped here!”_ Nino furiously bit the nearest bar of his prison for the umpteenth time this morning.  
  
He had been trying to escape from the magical cage, in which that strange boy had shut him, for twenty minutes already. _“If only I was able to use other magic apart from healing,”_ he grumbled, twitching his whiskers angrily and cursing his new body that only allowed him to use some basic, healing spells.   
  
Since the moment he had woken up in his room, turned into a little mouse, his life had only gotten worse and worse with each passing minute.   
  
  
_[Two hours ago]_  
  
 _  
“Mmmm?”_ Nino slowly woke up from his slumber. _“What time is it?”_ he thought a bit confused, seeing the darkness that surrounded him.   
He tried to move but his efforts were cut short by the sudden need to throw up.  
  
 _“T-The poison! But... h-how is it possible? I should have died after drinking it...”_ his eyes widened suddenly, remembering the events of the last night. He shook his head, confused, trying to clear it, and shuddered when his ear brushed against some kind of cloth that seemed to be wrapping him.   
_  
“W-What’s this? Why am I wrapped in some kind of shroud?”_ he weakly struggled in his confinement. _“I’ve to find out what really happened last night,”_ he decided, recalling the atrocious pain he felt. _“And discover why the poison didn’t kill me and who has tried to kill me!”_  
  
He tried to stand up but his attempts were thwarted by the thick cloth that wrapped him. _“But first, I need to escape from here and contact Jun and Aiba!”_  
  
Still feeling strange – it was probably a secondary effect of the poison, - Nino hurriedly crawled towards what he hoped was the exit, moving the thick cloth out of his way as he advanced. Without warning, the narrow passage opened in front of him and he was blinded by the sudden light. A moment later, when his eyes recovered, he looked around him, dumbfounded.   
_  
“W-What’s happening? Why is the furniture of my room so big?”_ he rubbed his eyes, bewildered, noticing for the first time the short fur that covered his hands.  
  
 _“EH?”_ he looked, shocked, at his hands – now paws – and his body. _“I-I’ve turned into a... mouse?”_ he spluttered, touching his round nose, short whiskers and small ears.  
 _  
“No, no, no... This can’t be happening... I’m sure this has to be some kind of crazy nightmare,”_ he anxiously tried to convince himself. _“I have to wake up but I can’t pinch myself with these paws, what could I do? Ah! I know!”_ He bit his left paw with force.  
  
A high pitched cry of pain echoed in the quiet room.   
_  
“DAMN!!”_ Nino licked his injured paw with teary eyes, _“So this isn’t a dream after all.”_  
  
He licked his paw again, trying to soothe the throbbing pain, and closed his eyes to better concentrate on his healing magic. Almost immediately, a warm feeling enveloped him, slowly calming the pain in his paw.  
  
 _“That’s way better!”_ he sighed, relived, moving his just healed paw experimentally.   
  
He decided to observe his surroundings, noticing for the first time the bottle of water he had drunk from last night laying under the bed. He approached the bottle with precaution and warily sniffed the remaining water.  
  
 _“There is poison here, no doubt about it”_ with his enhanced sense of smell, Nino didn’t have any trouble detecting the sickening, sweet smell of the mortal poison that had been diluted in the water.   
_  
“But, why did the poison fail?”_ he wondered, confused, twitching his whiskers. _“Perhaps it was due Aiba’s concoction?”_ he pondered the idea, scratching his ear pensively. _“It could be... After all, he doesn’t know what he is doing half of the time.”_  
  
Nino decided to put aside that question for the moment. Reversing his current, mouse-ish condition was a much more pressing problem, after all.  
  
 _“What can I do?”_ he racked his brain trying to find a solution. _“Ah! I know! I’ll invoke a magical spirit to contact Jun or Aiba and all my problems will be solved,”_ he rubbed his paws together, congratulating himself on his good idea.  
  
He closed his eyes and cast a simple spell of invocation. After two heart-beats without anything happening, Nino opened one eye. _“Maybe I’ve misspelled the incantation?”_ he pondered, anxiously scratching his nose.   
  
Nino tried three more times before giving up, _“It’s no use. It looks like I can only cast healing spells while I am in this body.”_  
  
He looked around him, trying to decide on his next step, when his eyes noticed the little space under his bedroom’s door. _“Maybe I can pass through that little space and meet Jun and Aiba myself... I’ll worry about how to tell them who I am when the moment arrives.”_  
  
He resolutely stuck his head in the space under the door and forced his way through the narrow space. After lot of wriggling, the little mouse freed himself from the small space with a popping sound.  
  
 _“Free at last!”_ Nino furtively ran along the corridor, trying to avoid unnecessary attention.   
  
_“At least, there aren’t many students in the corridors at this hour,”_ he peeked around a corner, checking if the way was clear.  
  
Suddenly, he felt an unpleasant shiver run down his spine, _“W-What’s this feeling? As if someone was staring hungrily at me...”_ Nino looked warily around him and felt his blood freeze when his eyes met a pair of evil, large, green eyes.   
  
A big cat was looking intensely at him from the corridor that led to the kitchens. The ferocious beast licked its lips with anticipation, making Nino shudder, terrified.   
  
_"Since when there is a cat in the school?!”_ Nino’s thoughts ran wildly in his mind like trapped mice.   
  
Then, as if everything was happening in slow-motion, the cat began to walk towards him, never averting its burning gaze from his small, trembling figure.   
  
_“Run! RUN!”_ his mind yelled at him, seeing the cat approaching. With a great effort, Nino snapped out of his shocked state and dashed down the corridor.  
  
He heard a furious growl behind him and the horrifying sounds of the cat beginning to pursue him. Nino ran like crazy, dodging the people and the different obstacles in front of him the best he could.   
  
With his heart beating painfully in his chest, Nino hurriedly turned a corner only to find that his way was blocked by a dead end. He was running so fast that he couldn’t stop in time and collided with the wall. Feeling dizzy, he turned around to find out that the cat was already there, getting ready to pounce and finish him off. Nino closed his eyes, not wanting to see his immediate demise.   
  
The next thing he felt was a warm hand encircling him and lifting him in the air.   
  
“Ouch!”   
  
Nino heard a yell of pain, but he didn’t open his eyes. He didn’t want to raise his hopes of his imminent death being interrupted.  
  
“Are you o.k.? Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you,” a soft voice whispered and he felt the soothing caress of a slightly calloused hand on his back.   
  
Nino slowly opened his eyes to find the gentle, brown eyes of a young man looking at him.   
  
_“A first year student? He looks familiar... Do I know him?”_ Nino began to relax, seeing that he wasn’t in imminent danger any more.  
  
“You can trust me,” the first year student nodded.  
  
 _“Eh? Trust him? Why should I trust him? As far as I know, he could be related with last night’s poisoning attempt!”_ Nino squinted with suspicion, looking at the eager face in front of him. He began to wriggle, trying to break free from the suspicious stranger.  
  
“Whoa! What happened, little mouse? You don’t trust me? I’m not going to do you any harm,” the stranger exclaimed, tightening his grip on Nino and directing his steps towards the beginning of the corridor.  
  
 _“Where are you taking me? Let me go!!”_ Nino struggled harder, but without success.  
  
The stranger stopped in front of a student's bedroom door and opened it. Once in his room, the boy looked around as if he was searching for something.  
  
“Hmmm… now, what I’m going to do with you?” he muttered.  
 _  
“I don’t trust you! Release me now!”_ Nino redoubled his efforts to break free.  
  
“Hey!” the young man protested and held Nino carefully. “Calm down, please. I have to get you a house and I can’t do it if you move so much,” he complained, drawing something in a notebook.  
  
 _“Not on your life!”_ Nino bit the hand that was holding him with all his might.  
  
“Ouch! Don’t bite!” the stranger complained but didn’t release him.   
  
_“And make things easier for you?”_ Nino squirmed and tried to bite the boy’s hand again.  
  
“Don’t complain later if the cage doesn’t suit your tastes!” the stranger warned him, putting the finishing touches in his drawing.  
  
A moment later, a metal cage appeared out of nowhere, right in front of them.  
  
 _“W-WHAT?”_ Nino froze, stunned, looking at the magical cage with his eyes open wide. _“B-but... How?... W-where was that cage hidden?”_  
  
“Do you like it?” the young man asked him with a pleased smile.  
  
Nino looked at him, unable to snap out of his shock, _“W-who is this guy?... Wasn’t he a first year student? Don’t tell me his natural skill is the capability to cast a high level spell of Creation magic... It can’t be! Even I can’t use those spells and I’ve been studying magic for years!”_  
  
“Don’t grow too fond of it because it will only last a few days. I’ll search for a better – and more real – house for you in the mean time!” the young man commented, putting him in the cage and closing its door.   
  
_“Hey! Wait!”_  
  
“I’ll bring you something delicious to eat after breakfast!” the first year student promised him, filling the water trough before leaving the room.  
  
Nino ran around the cage, searching for a hole or a weak point.   
_  
“HOW  THE HELL DID I GET TRAPPED IN HERE?!?!”_  
  
  
~~  
  
 _[Current time]_  
  
Nino, fatigued, decided to stop his futile attempts to escape and spent the following minutes mulling over the possible steps he could take to escape. Without realising it, the tired mouse felt asleep.  
  
Some hours later, Nino woke up and looked, astonished, at the big chunk of cheese in front of him.  
 _  
“Where did this cheese come from?”_ he wondered, surprised, examining the room through the cage’s bars in search of the stranger.  
  
 _“Perhaps he left it here while I was sleeping...”_ he sniffed the piece of cheese, suddenly feeling hungry.   
  
He was going to bite the cheese when a voice of warning echoed in his mind, _“It could be poisoned, you know?”_  
  
Nino looked warily at the cheese, hesitant to eat it, but he finally decided to pay attention to his rational mind, _“If the stranger wanted me dead, he would have let the cat eat me.”_  
  
Cheese had never tasted so good. He voraciously ate the piece of cheese until he felt full and then decided to resume his nap, unable to do anything more to change his current situation. _“If I can’t change things, at least I should take advantage of the situation and enjoy my free time.”_  
  
  
~~  
  
It was almost dinner time when the first year student returned to the room.  
  
 _“At last!”_ Nino sighed, frowning at the young student. _“I think I’ve slept enough for the rest of my life!”_  
  
At first, he had enjoyed the freedom of not having to attend his daily classes, but with each passing hour he had grown more and more bored, unable to do anything more interesting than run around his cage.  
  
“Sorry, I didn’t expect to spend all day outside,” the young man apologized to the sulking mouse. “Today has been really hectic, but I managed to get some good things for you~” he hummed.  
  
The student rummaged animatedly through the contents of the bag he was carrying.  
  
“A fluffy doll bed, a hamster wheel to keep you fit, some chewing toys, a ball… aaaand sunflower seeds!” he exclaimed merrily, taking out the things and putting them on the floor near the cage.  
  
Nino looked at the things the young man had brought. _“I wonder where he has found those things... and why he has taken all the trouble to fetch them just for a mouse he trapped this morning.”  
_  
“I’m still working on your new cage, though” the young man kept chatting animatedly, “but I think I haven’t forgotten anything too important, right?”  
  
 _“Well, my NDS would have been lovely, but I suppose that a game console isn’t the most normal thing to put in a mouse cage,”_ Nino snickered.   
  
The young man carefully opened the door’s cage and picked up the mouse before it could escape.   
  
“It wasn’t easy to fetch everything, you know?” he kept chatting happily with the wriggling mouse, arranging the new objects inside the cage. “There was a big commotion in school today. Some important student has disappeared and everybody was searching desperately for him.”  
  
Hearing the news, Nino froze. _“My disappearance has caused a big commotion? Did they notice the poisoned bottle?”_  
  
“Are you o.k., little boy?” the stranger, a bit worried by Nino’s sudden stiffness, petted him soothingly.  
  
 _“But, if they have found the poison… why didn’t he mention it?”_ Nino kept pondering, without paying real attention to the student’s worries.  
  
 _“Did Jun or Aiba suspect something? Will they find out what has happened to me?”_ without realizing it, Nino relaxed under the young man’s soft caresses.  
  
“Did the cheese not agree with you?” the student rubbed Nino’s tummy, trying to find some suspicious swelling or other symptoms of sickness.  
  
 _“I don’t think they-”_ Feeling the examination, Nino snapped out of his meditative state. _“HEY!”_ he protested and tried to bite the probing hand.   
  
“I’m only trying to see if you’re sick!” the boy protested with an offended pout.  
  
Nino wasn’t too convinced but didn’t try to bite him again – though he kept an eye on him in case he tried to grope him again.   
  
_“Hmmmm... despite his groping tendencies, he doesn’t seem to be a bad guy... and he doesn’t seem to have any relation with the poisoning either,”_ Nino thought, carefully observing the young man.  
  
“Well, I think there is only one thing left to do… to choose a name for you.”   
  
_“A name for me? I’ve a name already!”_  
  
“I’m Ohno Satoshi and you can be… hmmmm… what about ‘Fluffy’?” the young man proposed with a bright smile.  
  
 _“Fluffy?”_ Nino, outraged, stared at him. _“Couldn’t you think of anything better? I take back what I said before!”_ he growled and bit the young man’s hand with fury.  
  
“Ouch! You didn’t have to bite me!” the student protested, pained, sucking his injured thumb. _“Not ‘Fluffy’ then. I think that ‘Grumpy’ suits you better!”_ he exclaimed, pouting.   
_  
“GRUMPY!? Now you’ll see how ‘grumpy’ I can be!”_ Nino wriggled on his grip, trying to bite him again but the young man held him tighter, keeping Nino's sharp teeth far away from his hand.   
  
“Good night, Grumpy,” he told Nino, putting him in the cage and covering the cage with a sheet.  
  
 _“My name isn’t Grumpy! Hey! Do you hear me?! I’m not Grumpy! I’m Ninomiya Kazunari and I belong to an important family! HEY!”_ Nino ran furiously around his cage, biting the bars and scattering the sunflower seeds the student had brought him.  
  
“Sweet dreams, Grumpy,” the young man whispered, yawning, and turned off the lights.  
  
~~  
  
An hour later, Nino was still fuming about the stupid name that guy had given him.  
  
 _“Grumpy,”_ Nino spat disparagingly the name, _“Couldn’t he find a better name?”_  
  
He lay down in his new bed – pointedly ignoring its softness.   
_  
“Well, I don’t have time for this. I’ve to meet Jun and Aiba and find out who is behind the poisoning,”_ he reached for a sunflower seed and began to nibble it pensively.  
  
 _“I don't think he is related to the poisoning, so the sooner I make him realise my true identity the better,”_ he decided with a yawn and closed his eyes ready to fall asleep. Ten minutes later he was sleeping like a log, hugging the half-eaten sunflower seed.


	4. Chapter 4

“Good morning, Grumpy~”  
  
Nino, still half asleep, twitched his whiskers, annoyed by the sound of the merry voice of his roommate. He turned over, ignoring the sudden gust of wind when the student lifted the sheet that covered his cage.  
  
“I’m sure today will be a wonderful day~”   
  
The rustling sound of the curtains was the only warning he got before the bright light of the daybreak sun flooded the room  
  
 _“What time is it?”_ Nino drowsily wondered, squirming in his bed trying to protect his eyes from the painful light.  
  
He warily opened an eye and looked at the small clock on the bedside table.  
  
 _“F-five o’clock!?... It can’t be true!”_ Nino rubbed his eyes in disbelief and stared, open-mouthed, at the insulting face of the clock.  
  
“The dawn is beautiful today, Grumpy,” Ohno beamed at him, lifting the cage to let the little mouse ‘appreciate’ the view.  
  
 _“Are you crazy!?”_ Nino fixed his gaze on the student, trying to kill him with his scorching glare. _“It’s just five o’clock in the morning! Five o’clock! There are still three hours to go before it’s breakfast time!”_  
  
Ohno didn’t seem to notice his death glare and put the cage back in its place. “What do you want for breakfast today?” he asked, beginning to make the bed.  
  
 _“Two more hours of sleep! That’s what I want for breakfast!”_ Nino bit the bars angrily. _“Don’t you know that waking up so early in the morning is bad for your health? Especially for MY health!”_  
  
Paying no attention to the ruckus Nino was making in protest, Ohno kept chatting amicably as he tidied the room. “I love to watch the dawn every morning,” he commented.  
  
 _“This must be a joke!”_ Nino shuddered, visualizing uncountable mornings waking up at dawn. _“I need to make him realize who I really am as soon as possible! It’s a matter of life and death!”_  
 _  
“Hey you! Look at me!”_ he tried to catch Ohno’s attention when he was filling his water trough. _“Look into my eyes!”_  
  
It seemed as if the young boy had heard him, because he suddenly stopped filling the trough and looked at Nino, blinking owlishly.  
 _  
“Good,”_ he stood up and waved at Ohno.   
  
Ohno’s eyes widened in something akin to surprise. “Grumpy?” he mused.  
  
 _“Look, I’m a human like you,”_ Nino tried to convey the idea, pointing at himself and then at Ohno. He repeated the movement a few more times and looked at the young student expectantly.  
  
“You’re so cute!” the oblivious boy beamed at him.  
 _  
“W-What?”_  
  
Ohno took Nino out of the cage and began to pet him, gushing about how clever and adorable his new pet was.  
  
 _“Clearly, I’ve been too optimistic,”_ Nino sighed, closing his eyes in defeat while Ohno stroked his fur softly.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
Two days after his last attempt, Nino was beginning to get desperate. All his efforts to make Ohno realize his real identity through gestures had been met with the student’s incomprehension, getting, at the very best, an extra session of petting and a larger chunk of cheese.   
  
It wasn’t as if he was complaining about the petting or the extra food, in fact he had begun to enjoy both things more than he was willing to admit. He had even encouraged Ohno, once or twice, to pet him a bit longer… – O.K. maybe it had been more than ten times, but who was counting? After all, if he was going to be considered a pet, he might as well take full advantage of it. But he didn’t think he could endure the wake-up-at hell-o’clock-to-enjoy-the-dawn-thing any longer.  
 _  
“If gestures don’t work, what can I do to make him understand?”_ Nino wondered, glancing in his roommate's direction.   
  
The student was seated in front of his desk, carefully reading the book about basic potions he had received the first day of class.  
  
 _“Homework?”_ Nino guessed, jumping out of the hamster wheel to look at Ohno. _“I remember the first homework the potion teacher set us; an innocuous looking potion that changed the color of the eyes and tasted like hell. The potion was easy to obtain if you carefully followed the instructions written on the book, but everybody spat it out after the first sip because the taste was awful. The real lesson behind that potion was not to test the potions on people... Hmmmm... Now that I think about it, I don’t remember Aiba attending THAT class.”  
_  
While Nino was absorbed in his thoughts, Ohno finished mixing the potion in a vial.  
“I think I followed the instructions carefully, so this potion should change the color of my eyes.”   
  
Nino looked at him with interest. _“And here is when the show begins...”_ he smiled, anticipating the explosive reaction of the first year student when he tasted the awful potion.  
  
Ohno moved in front of the mirror and tentatively sipped the bright green liquid.  
  
Nino waited expectantly, rubbing his paws with evil satisfaction, _“Finally, karma strikes back! Although I am not involved in it, I’ll consider this as my sweet revenge for all these mornings waking up so damned early.”  
_  
After a few seconds, Ohno’s blank expression turned into one of delight. “Yummy!”  
  
Nino’s jaw dropped and his eyes widened in surprise. _“Yummy? H-He liked that awful taste?”_  
  
“Look, look Grumpy!” Ohno moved closer to Nino’s cage and fixed his bright eyes on him. “Now my eyes are blue!” he happily exclaimed.  
  
He took another sip of the potion without noticing Nino’s flinch. “What color are they now?” he asked Nino with a wide, sheepish grin.   
  
Ohno didn’t wait for Nino’s answer and returned to his place in front of the mirror, where he kept drinking the potion and blabbering excitedly about the color his eyes were changing into.  
  
“HIC!.. Hic! Hic!” Ohno’s merry chatter was interrupted by a sudden series of hiccups.  
  
 _“I knew it! If a potion tastes that bad it can’t be safe for your health! Now, my roommate is poisoned and I can’t make him understand that I’m not a mou...”_ Nino interrupted his own whining, widening his eyes in excitement. _“That’s it! I can use Morse code to communicate with him!”_  
  
He frantically looked around, searching for something that could be used to hit the bars. _“That’s it! I’ll use that sunflower seed!”_   
  
He rushed towards his bed and grabbed the half-eaten seed. He tested its hardness with the nearest bar and nodded approvingly, _“This will work perfectly!”_  
  
He carefully began to transmit his message, hitting the bars repeatedly with the sunflower seed.  
  
Ohno, who had managed to stop his hiccuping, turned around and looked at Nino with a confused expression.  
  
“What’s the problem, Grumpy? Are you sick?” he asked with concern, trying to take Nino out of the cage.  
  
 _“I don’t need any petting! Just listen to my message!”_ Nino dodged the student’s hand, running around the cage holding the seed between his teeth.  
  
“Maybe it’s a bit stressed. After all it has been trapped inside the cage for a while,” Ohno, with his eyes still changing colors, muttered to himself. “I know it! Today we’re going to eat together in the garden!”  
  
 _“That’s not it!”_ Nino rubbed his cheeks, desperate. _"I don’t want a walk or extra petting! I want you to understand who I really am!”_  
  
Ten minutes later, they were seated on a bench in the middle of the park, looking at the bright blue surface of the small lake.  
  
“This is a good place, isn’t it Grumpy? There are only a few students around and the lake looks beautiful surrounded by all the greenery,” Ohno commented contentedly, offering Nino a piece of bread from his sandwich.  
  
 _“I think I’m doomed.”_ Nino munched on the bread without appetite.  
  
  
~~  
  
Three days later, Nino finished the preparations for his last attempt. As Ohno didn’t seem to understand Morse code; this time he had decided to write his message using sunflower seeds. He had spent the last three days gathering seeds under his bed to avoid raising Ohno’s suspicions.  
  
 _“This one is a foolproof plan!”_ he gleefully rubbed his paws together, looking approvingly at his work. _“He surely can’t dismiss this message.”_  
  
On the cage’s floor, written with sunflower seeds, the next message could be read: “S.O.S.” – he wanted to write HELP ME MORON, but he needed too many seeds for that one and he didn’t want to wait any longer.  
  
 _“Now I only need to attract his attention,”_ he turned round to look at Ohno.  
  
The first year student was in front of the window, carefully observing the small, orange fireball that was floating between his hands.  
  
 _“He succeeded on making the fireball spell work already?!”_ Nino stuttered, astonished, watching how Ohno focused on the small fireball, making it rotate slowly on his palm. _“The first time I tried that spell, I needed two whole days and almost fifty attempts to make it work... and I just got a small flame that only the kindest teacher would consider a fireball.”  
_  
Suddenly, a baseball ball entered the room, shattering the window’s pane into a thousand pieces.  
  
“W-what?” Ohno stammered, surprised, raising his gaze and losing his control on the spell.  
  
 _“Look out!”_ Nino tried to shout as the fireball escaped from the circle formed by Ohno’s hands and flew around the room uncontrolled.  
  
“GRUMPY!” Ohno anxiously cried, watching the fireball’s trajectory change to head towards Nino’s cage.  
  
Nino, paralyzed, looked at the approaching fireball like a deer-blinded-by-light.   
  
The next thing he knew, he was laying on his cage’s side with his bed and the sunflower seeds scattered all around.   
  
“Grumpy, are you ok?... Grumpy?”  
  
Nino, still shocked by the recent events, fixed his gaze on Ohno’s worried eyes.   
  
_“W-what had happened?”_ he tried to stand up, shaking furiously.  
  
The student reached a trembling hand to calm the nervous mouse, but he stopped mid-way with a pained expression. He carefully rested his hand on his lap instead, his eyes beginning to tear.  
  
Nino, stunned, looked at the deep burn in the student’s hand, realizing what had happened; Ohno, unable to regain his control on the fireball, had tried to stop it with his bare hand, knocking over the cage in his desperate attempt to save him.  
  
 _“What a fool!”_ Nino murmured, feeling his chest tighten with a strange emotion he couldn’t decipher.   
  
He slowly walked towards Ohno, dodging the things scattered on the floor. When he was close enough to him, he closed his eyes and began to concentrate on his healing magic. After a few seconds, he heard Ohno’s surprised gasp.  
  
The student was looking with an astonished expression at his just healed hand. “H-How is it possible? Did you do that, Grumpy?” Ohno, open-mouthed, fixed his surprised gaze on Nino.  
  
Nino just nodded, embarrassed, feeling the tip of his ears redden.  
  
“How did you do that? You aren’t a common mouse, aren’t you?” Ohno asked, observing Nino carefully. “Are you one of those magical creatures that appear in fairy tales that are able to understand people?” he asked excitedly.  
  
Nino shook his head.  
  
“A-Are you a d-demon?” Ohno, frightened, asked Nino.  
  
Nino shook his head violently and pointed at Ohno, looking with pleading eyes at the student. _“I’m just a human!”_ he tried to convey, pointing at the young man and then at himself repeatedly.  
  
“Hu-human? Are you a human?” the student hesitantly guessed.  
  
Nino nodded enthusiastically. _“Correct!”_  
  
“But why are you a mouse? Why didn’t you revert to your human form again?” the first year student wondered, looking puzzled at Nino.  
  
The small mouse shook his head once more.   
  
“Y-You can’t?” Ohno guessed. “That’s it! You are trapped into that mouse form, aren’t you? I should bring you to a teacher or a nurse. They will know what to do!” Ohno worriedly exclaimed, beginning to reach towards the little mouse.  
  
 _“No! I still don’t know who tried to kill me! The killer could be anybody and I don’t want to put myself in more danger without realizing it!”_ Nino frantically shook his head to make Ohno understand his point of view.  
  
“You don’t want me to tell anybody?” Ohno asked, confused. “Is this some kind of punishment?”   
  
Nino shook his head.  
  
“An experiment that worked wrong?” the student asked with a frown, remembering the latest events with the fireball spell.  
  
Nino sighed and nodded slowly.  
  
“What happened?” Ohno asked him, trying to comprehend what had happened with the human who had unexpectedly ended up as his pet.  
  
 _“I don’t know how to tell you,”_ Nino shrugged, looking with a defeated expression at Ohno.  
  
“I’m suppose it is really difficult to explain yourself when you can only say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’,” Ohno sighed.  
  
Suddenly, the student’s eyes widened, “I know it! I can try to cast a spell to understand what you are saying!” he looked at Nino expectantly.  
 _  
“Ok, it’s worth the try.”_ Nino nodded without wanting to raise his hopes.  
  
Ohno took the nearer drawing block and quickly drew something on it. Then, he put the block beside Nino and warned him, “Don’t move, please.”  
  
Nino stiffened, looking surprised at the circle drawn on the block, _“What’s that thing? How is a circle with a line pointing at me going to help us?”_  
  
Suddenly, he felt a warm, blue light enveloping him. _“Ohno’s magic feels strange,”_ Nino thought, _“like a soft, calming caress. It’s as if it’s reassuring me that everything will be fine...”_  
  
“Has it worked?” Ohno asked after a few seconds, looking expectantly at Nino.  
  
“I don’t’ know… how are we going to find it out?” Nino answered with his eyes still fixed on the drawing.  
  
“I think we know it now,” Ohno chuckled, making Nino look at him with surprise.  
  
“Eh? How is it possib…” Nino interrupted his question when he glimpsed his reflection in the mirror behind the student.   
  
“A speech bubble?!” whispered Nino amazed. “Just drawing that you can understand me?” he fixed his surprised eyes on Ohno’s smiling face. “Who are you? Some freakish genius come from a pumpkin? In my whole life I’ve never heard about a blue magic user capable of making a concept ‘real’! Even professor Kimura, the most skilful blue magic user in the entire kingdom, is unable to do that!”  
  
“I don’t know. I’ve been able to make my drawings real all my life. It’s only a few days ago that I discovered that not everybody was capable of doing that,” Ohno answered, blushing timidly  
  
“I still can’t believe it,” Nino shook his head, puzzled, trying to grasp the incredible range of possibilities an ability like that could provide to its user.   
  
Ohno, oblivious to Nino’s train of thought, picked the small mouse up and lifted it to eye level. “I suppose I should introduce myself… again,” he added with a smile. “I’m Ohno Satoshi, what’s your name?”   
  
“N-Ninomiya Kazunari,” Nino gulped, snapping out of his trance and looking at Ohno’s kind, brown eyes, “but everybody calls me Nino.”   
And then, after a seconds thought, he added, “By the way, I’m not going to wake up at five o’clock tomorrow… or ever, for that matter. And it’s definitive.”


	5. Chapter 5

“You are the missing student that everybody in the school is talking about? The one I met in the Opening Ceremony at the auditorium?” Ohno asked, surprised, after hearing Nino’s story about his life.  
  
“Correct! That's me, the handsome rodent pet... er... heir of Ninomiya's family,” Nino affirmed with a mocking bow, trying to joke about his current situation.  
  
Ohno, however, wasn’t fooled by Nino’s attempt to ignore the importance of his transformation. “How did you end up turning into a mouse? And what’s more important, do you have any idea of who could have attempted to poison you?” he asked seriously.  
  
“I’ve have no idea about who poisoned the bottle of water that I always keep in my room. And the transformation… it might be a reaction caused by the mixture of the poison and Aiba's concoction.” Nino sighed. “At least that’s what I think because, the day of the poisoning, I had the bad luck - or maybe the good luck - to drink one of my friend's crazy concoctions. According to Aiba, the potion would help me to endure boring speeches like the Dean's without falling asleep. Unfortunately, he neglected to mention anything about the furry skin, the big ears and the whiskers,” he murmured, depressed, looking at his paws.  
  
Ohno nodded silently and caressed Nino's head, trying to comfort him.  
   
Nino’s heart fluttered lightly at the kind gesture and he raised his head to look gratefully at Ohno. “Well, things could be worse,” he affirmed, “at least I'm not dead. I'm sure that the people who tried to kill me felt really disappointed when they didn't find a dead body in my room the morning after the poisoning.”  
  
“But, the transformation is reversible, isn’t it?” Ohno asked with a worried expression, “We can make a potion to turn you back into a human again, right?” He looked at Nino with big, hopeful eyes.  
  
“It could be reversed if we knew the ingredients used to make the poison and the potion,” Nino explained. “The poison is easy; when I sniffed the one I drank I recognized it, but Aiba’s potion… that’s another story. He is a genius, but he seldom knows what he’s doing... I still wonder how he passes his exams,” Nino grumbled, shaking his head.    
  
“Then, why don’t we ask your friend for help?” the first year student proposed with a smile.  
  
“That would be useful… but I’m not sure if it’s a good idea,” Nino replied, scratching his ear.  
  
“Why not?” Ohno asked, puzzled.  
  
“Because the person who tried to kill me might be watching them. At least, that’s what I would do if I were in the assassin’s shoes.”  
  
Ohno nodded slowly, “That makes sense. But then, what can we do?”  
  
After some minutes thinking Nino had an idea, “We can watch them too!” he said, smashing his left fist into his right paw. “This way, we’ll find out if someone is watching them and we’ll learn more about the assassin.”  
  
Ohno nodded enthusiastically, “That sounds like a good plan!”  
  
  
~~  
  
 _Later that night_  
  
  
Feeling restless, Nino turned over in his little doll bed for the umpteenth time. Since they had gone to bed after deciding that they would start the stalking the next morning, something was bugging him, something was amiss, but he was unable to pinpoint what it was exactly.   
  
He left his bed and exited his cage – after all, there was no reason for Ohno to close the cage’s door after discovering that he wasn’t a simple mouse. After walking aimlessly around the room to calm his restlessness, he reached Ohno’s bed.   
  
_“I wonder if he’s already asleep,”_ he thought, climbing up the bed’s leg.  
  
When he reached the top of the bed, he was greeted by the sudden view of Ohno’s nape. Without thinking, he scooted closer, slightly breathing in Ohno’s scent.  
  
 _“I don’t know if this is a side effect of the transformation or the enhancement of my sense of smell, but I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who smelled so good and calming,”_ he thought, sniffling Ohno’s nape with delight.  
  
Feeling Nino’s whiskers brushing against him, the student drownsily scratched his nape and turned over, almost squashing the small mouse under his body.  
  
“Woah! That was dangerous!” Nino exclaimed, hurriedly moving away.   
  
After some seconds, he tentatively moved closer once again and examined Ohno’s face. _“It seems that he’s still sound asleep.”_     
  
With a mischievous smile, the little mouse went round Ohno’s head and settled himself beside his nape again.   
  
_“Ahhh, that’s much better!”_ he thought contentedly, sniffling Ohno’s nape again.  
  
Some minutes later, when he was about to fall asleep, Nino finally realized what had been bugging him lately; Ohno hadn’t petted him since he had found out Nino’s true identity, not even once.   
  
_“Hmmmf, if he thinks that knowing my true identity means that he doesn’t have to pet me anymore, he’s greatly mistaken! I won’t allow him to escape from his responsibilities so easily!”_ he affirmed with a frown. _““It’s true that I’m not really a pet mouse, but right now I’m trapped in this tinny, furry body, which clearly has some petting needs that had to been satisfied.Tomorrow without fail, I’ll talk to him seriously about his obligations.”_  
  
Satisfied with his decision, he moved closer to Ohno, wanting to enjoy the warmth the first year student provided, and closed his eyes. In less than five minutes he was sound asleep, leaning on Ohno’s nape.  
  
  
~~  
  
Next morning, after a satisfactory session of petting – Ohno had finally given in after putting up with a whining and sulking Nino for almost two hours – they had started the preparations for the stalking mission.  
  
“I’m going too, but the speech bubble spell is too visible. We need to think up of something different to let me communicate with you.” Nino informed Ohno.  
  
“Hmmm, something similar but more discreet, right?” Ohno scratched his chin pensively. “How about a walkie-talkie that translates your words for me?”  
  
“Good idea!” Nino jumped excitedly on the desk, “You can use earphones to hear me and I can hide in your pocket to give you instructions.”  
  
With a nod, Ohno took his drawing notebook and drew a little walkie-talkie connected with a pair of earphones. A minute later, Nino had the little walkie-talkie in his paws.  
  
“Well, let’s try it. Turn back and don’t cheat! The objective is to prove if we can communicate without the speech bubbles!” Nino ordered Ohno.  
  
“O.k., o.k.” Ohno rolled his eyes but followed the little mouse’s orders nonetheless.   
  
“Hello? Can you hear me?” Nino asked through the magical device after being sure that Ohno couldn’t see him.  
  
“Loud and clear.”   
  
“O.k.! Now you only have to dispel the other spell.”  
  
With a nod, Ohno dispelled the speech bubble spell. “Lets’ begin!” he exclaimed, putting Nino in his pocket.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
Ohno hurriedly averted his eyes from Nino’s friends, trying his best to look like an innocent student passing – for the third time – in front of the door of the communal room where they had found them and hour ago.  
  
Nino, from his hideout inside the pocket of Ohno’s uniform, face-palmed his forehead in disbelief. _“Is THIS his way to spy on someone discreetly?”_  
  
“You don’t have the slightest idea of what being subtle means!” Nino’s voice, full of disapproval, reached Ohno through his earphones.   
  
The poor student, startled, looked down to find the shinny and disapproving eyes of the little mouse drilling a hole into his face.  
  
“Sorry, but I’ve never stalked someone before,” Ohno whined loudly, attracting looks of curiosity from the passing students.   
  
“Shhhhh!” Nino shushed him through his little walkie-talkie. “You’re too loud! Quickly, get out of here before Jun or Aiba notice you!”  
  
Upon hearing those words, Ohno cast an involuntary glance towards Nino’s friends and felt his cheeks redden in embarrassment when he saw the black haired one looking at him with an inquisitive expression.  
  
He quickly turned away and fled as fast as possible, guiding his steps toward the relative safety of the school gardens.   
  
“I think one of your friends caught me,” he said, out of breath, taking Nino out of his pocket and putting him on the bench.  
  
“Which one?” Nino asked worriedly, “if it was Aiba we’re safe, he is not the suspicious type, but if it was Jun…”  
  
“The one dressed in a beige suit with purple motifs.”  
  
“Darn! We’re in trouble.” Nino cursed loudly. “I should have gone alone to spy on them,” he affirmed with a frown.  
  
“But the school is not safe for you,” Ohno protested, “Last time you almost got eaten by the kitchen’s cat.”  
  
“…Right, but-”  
  
“Ohno-kun?” a voice interrupted their conversation.   
  
Ohno quickly turned around, hiding Nino protectively behind him. A handsome student, dressed in a grey uniform with red motifs, was looking at him with a puzzled expression.   
  
“Are you o.k.? You looked like you were talking with yourself,” the student asked with a worried expression, approaching Ohno.  
  
“Ah, Sakurai sempai,” Ohno exhaled, relieved, recognizing the member of the student committee that had helped him the first day. “I was talking with my pet,” he explained, taking off his earphones.  
  
“Sakurai? Sho Sakurai? The president of the student committee?” Nino tried to peek at the newcomer. “What is he doing here? Does he suspect something?” he asked with suspicion, without remembering that Ohno couldn’t understand him now that he wasn’t using the earphones.  
  
“Your pet?” Sho asked, looking around in search of the aforementioned pet. “I didn’t know the school let students bring pets. Where is it?”  
  
“Here,” Ohno extended his hand, showing him the little mouse trapped there.  
  
“Hey! I’m not a circus attraction!” Nino complained.  
  
Sho widened his eyes in surprise. “A m-mouse?” he looked warily at the little rodent wriggling in Ohno’s hand, “Is it dangerous?”   
  
_“Yes! I can bite you till you die!”_ Nino shot Sho a nasty look.  
  
“Nah, only a bit bossy sometimes,” Ohno joked, holding Nino tighter when the latter tried to bite him after squeaking in outrage.  
  
“I see…” Sho, still watching the mouse cautiously, sat beside Ohno. “Well, how are things going? Are you getting used to school?” he asked with a friendly smile.  
  
“Yeah, thanks to you,” Ohno nodded, smiling gratefully at the taller student.  
  
Both students started a friendly conversation about Ohno’s experiences and thoughts about the magic school, without paying attention to the protesting mouse in Ohno’s hand.  
  
 _“Ha! Look at him; he’s so engrossed in his conversation with the all-knowing-president-of-the-student-committee that he has forgotten me completely,”_ Nino grumbled, feeling neglected.   
  
A second later, when he realized his thoughts, he widened his eyes surprised, _“Wait a minute, why am I so upset about this?”_ he asked himself, confused. _“And why, all of sudden, do I feel as if the president of the student committee were my worst enemy?”_   He was pondering his confusing feelings when a sudden movement caught his attention.   
  
“I’m glad you’re adapting well,” Sho said, putting an arm around Ohno’s shoulder in a friendly gesture.  
  
Nino’s frown deepened with jealousy and he couldn’t avoid squeaking angrily, “Hey! Stay away from him!”   
  
Ohno, startled by Nino’s high pitched scream, stopped his phrase in the middle of a word and quickly turned his head, looking worriedly at the little mouse.   
  
“What’s wrong, Ni-Grumpy?” he asked anxiously, remembering in the last second that he shouldn’t call Nino by his real name. “Did I squash you without noticing it?”   
  
Nino, who had slapped both paws on his mouth in a futile effort to stop his words, looked at him, embarrassed. _“Thanks God he is not wearing the earphones!”_  
  
He shook his head, making Sho widen his eyes in amazement. “Amazing! It seems like your pet can understand you!” he exclaimed and hesitantly extended a hand to pet the mouse.  
  
Following a sudden impulse, triggered by his recently discovered jealousy, Nino tried to bite him.  
  
“Hey!” Sho protested, quickly moving his finger away. “There is no need to bite me!”  
“Your pet is really bad tempered!” the president of the student committee exclaimed.  
  
“Sorry! Sorry! I‘m so sorry,” Ohno apologized to Sho profusely, blushing furiously with embarrassment..   
  
“Don’t worry. I’m o.k.” Sho tried to relieve Ohno’s guilt. “Maybe it‘s hungry,” the president of the committee suggested.   
  
“I think that's probably it. I should feed him immediately,” Ohno exclaimed, tightening his grip on Nino. With another apology, the first year student turned back and hurriedly left the place.  
  
“I hope you have a very good explanation for this, Nino,” he hissed angrily at the contrite mouse, “or you can kiss tonight’s petting session goodbye!”  
  
Nino squirmed uncomfortably, avoiding Ohno’s furious glare.   
  
Watching Ohno disappear around the corner, Sho shook his head, murmuring, “Grumpy? I think “Killer” would fit that vicious beast better! I wonder how he got that strange mouse as a pet.”


	6. Chapter 6

_“Well, things didn’t end so badly, did they?”_ Nino moved closer to Ohno’s neck. _“Thank goodness he accepted my explanation.”_  
  
Having the hunch that Ohno wouldn’t accept _‘I-got-jealous-seeing-how-you-two-were-getting-along-so-well’_ as an explanation, he had been preparing an adequate reply during the trip back to Ohno’s room. When Ohno had asked him for an explanation, Nino had murmured something along the lines of hating strange people touching him. After all, there was no need for Ohno to know about the warmth that enveloped him every time the calm student petted him or how his heart skipped a beat when Ohno smiled scrunching up his cute nose, right?  
  
After some time pondering his explanation, Ohno had accepted his reasons, missing the crucial point that **_he_** , unlike those strangers, was allowed to touch Nino - in fact, he was coaxed to do it whenever it was possible. However, the first year student still thought that Nino’s attempt to bite Sho’s finger was too harsh, so he had decided to punish the small mouse canceling his petting privileges for now.  
  
 _“Tomorrow, when things have calmed a bit, I’ll try to persuade him to pet me again,”_ Nino thought, sniffling the calming scent of the asleep student. He yawned drowsily, rubbing his cheek against Ohno’s soft nape.   
  
One thing was clear, no matter how confusing his feelings were, he wasn’t going to renounce to the privilege of sleeping close to Ohno without a very good reason.  
  
~~  
  
After three whole days following Jun and Aiba around the school without discovering anything new about the attempt to poison Nino, the latter had to admit that their current method of investigation wasn’t going to get them anywhere.  
  
“We have to try another approximation,” Nino commented in the middle of his morning petting session.  
  
Ohno slowly nodded, scratching Nino behind his ear absent-mindedly. Nino almost purred in delight but stopped himself in time - after all, who was he to snap Ohno out of his reverie? Especially if the first year student was going to caress him like that every time he was lost in his thoughts.   
  
_“Now that I think about it, Ohno seems to be unusually tired and distracted lately,”_ he thought, biting his lips. He glanced at Ohno’s face, noticing for the fist time the slight paleness of the first year student.   
  
“Ohno, are you o.k.? You look a bit pale,” he commented worriedly.  
  
“Hmmmm?” Ohno blinked owlishly and looked at the little mouse in his hands. “What?”   
  
“Do you feel well?” Nino insisted.  
  
“I’m a bit tired. I suppose I didn’t sleep well yesterday,” Ohno shrugged, yawning.  
  
Hearing Ohno’s explanation, Nino frowned in disagreement because he was absolutely sure that the student had slept like a log all the night - after all, he had been sleeping beside him, hearing his peaceful and deep breath, - but he couldn’t deny that Ohno didn’t look more refreshed when the morning arrived. Seeing that Ohno seemed to know as much as him about his strange tiredness, Nino stopped questioning him. However, he decided to keep an eye on the first year student to try to discover the reasons behind his strange lack of liveliness.  
  
“Why don’t we investigate your room?” Ohno proposed after a few minutes, stopping Nino’s train of thought. “If we’re lucky, we might discover how the person who tried to poison you entered the room.”  
  
“That‘s a good idea,” Nino said, turning his head to facilitate Ohno access to his chin. “The rooms of the students are private and only a few people are allowed to enter that area. Maybe the assassin left something in the room that can help us to find more about his identity.”  
  
~~  
  
After the morning classes, they decided to put their new plan in action. Following Nino’s instructions, Ohno wandered around the second floor towards Nino’s room, trying to look like he was searching for someone of that floor.  
  
“O.k., this is my room,” Nino murmured through the walkie-talkie. “When nobody is looking, try to open the door. The password is _I-love-my-NDS_.”  
  
“I love my NDS?” Ohno snickered, looking down to where Nino was comfortably hidden.  
  
“Yes, do you have a problem with that?” Nino replied, blushing. “I don’t think _3104_ is a better password than mine!”  
  
Still discussing the different passwords, Ohno opened the door of Nino’s bedroom. Suddenly, a hand grabbed Ohno’s shoulder and made the first year student turn around brusquely.  
  
“I knew you were suspicious,” the tall student in a beige uniform with purple motifs affirmed. “What are you searching for inside this room?”  
  
“I-I w-” Ohno stuttered, frightened by the aggressive behavior of the black haired student.  
  
“What do you know about Nino’s disappearance? Speak!” the angry student growled, pulling Ohno’s earphones off.  
  
“Jun, calm a bit,” another student, dressed in a grey uniform with green motifs, murmured. “You won’t get any responses if you frighten him.”  
  
“I know he knows something, Aiba. Why would he spy on us if he is not related with Nino’s disappearance? And why did he enter his room?” Jun almost yelled, getting angrier by the time.  
  
 _“Jun, stop!”_ Nino shouted, but his squeaks went unnoticed in the middle of the heated discussion.  
  
“Where do you think you are going?” Jun shouted, noticing Ohno’s weak attempts to recoil from him. The furious student grabbed Ohno by the front of his uniform and pushed him against the wall, almost lifting him.  
  
Ohno’s pained grunt made Nino see red. The next thing he knew was that he was launching himself towards Jun in a desperate attempt to defend Ohno.  
  
Shocked by the sudden appearance of the mouse, the tall student instinctively shook his arm, sending Nino flying faraway from him.  
  
Seeing Nino flying towards the wall made Ohno’s eyes widen in terror. Nino might die if he collided with the wall with such a force!  
  
“NINO!” The short student shouted, pushing a surprised Jun away brusquely. With an abrupt movement, Ohno launched himself towards the flying mouse, stretching his hands in a desperate attempt to catch him.   
  
Miraculously, he was able to catch Nino before he collided with the wall. “Are you o.k. Nino?” Ohno asked anxiously at the stunned mouse that was trembling on his hands.  Petting soothingly the frightened mouse, he turned around to pierce Jun with a lethal glare. “Don’t you ever do that again!” he shouted at the shocked student, trembling with anger.  
  
“Nino?” Aiba asked, taken aback. “What are you talking about? Do you know something about our missing friend?”  
  
But Ohno was just too angry to hear him. The air crackled around him when he unconsciously began to accumulate energy to cast an offensive spell.   
  
On the other side of the corridor, Jun was also accumulating energy to cast a spell to counterattack Ohno’s offensive spell.  
  
Nino looked at Ohno open-mouthed. He had never seen the older student so angry, so out of his usual calm-self. Instinctively, he tried to calm him by licking his fingers.  
  
Noticing the small mouse’s warm tongue, Ohno blinked a few times, snapping out of his furious trance. He slowly released the energy accumulated and moved Nino closer to him protectively, feeling a bit dizzy after accumulating so much energy.   
  
“Why don’t we try to calm ourselves a bit so you can explain us what’s happening?” Aiba sighed, making Jun a gesture to stop his spell too.  
  
~~  
  
Convincing Nino’s friends wasn’t an easy task. After explaining how he had found out Nino’s real identity, Ohno just received Aiba’s incredulous gaze and Jun’s looks of disdain.  
  
“So, let me get this clear. Are you telling us that this mouse is Nino?” Jun asked, raising one eyebrow.   
  
Ohno nodded with a hopeful smile.  
  
“Do you think we are stupid? You should think up something better if you want us to believe you!” the tall student exclaimed, getting angry again.  
  
“If you’re kind enough to wait a second, I will cast a spell to prove it,” Ohno sighed tiredly.  
  
“Hah, as if we were going to-“ Jun’s words were interrupted by Aiba, who put a calming hand on his friend’s leg to stop him.  
  
“Let him explain himself, Jun. He’s our only clue to find out what happened to Nino.”  
  
Ohno smiled at the lanky student gratefully. “Thanks,” he murmured, casting the speech bubble spell.  
  
When the blue light enveloping Nino disappeared, the latter tried to communicate with his friends, “Jun? Aiba?”  
  
“W-What is that? What kind of trick have you used?” Jun asked, open-mouthed, almost falling down from his chair.  
  
“C-Creation magic?” Aiba gasped, socked, pointing with a trembling hand at the speech bubble that floated over the mouse. Without paying attention to the text written in the speech bubble, he touched it with hesitation. His hand went through the bubble as if it were made of air.  
  
“It can’t be! Only the most powerful magicians are able to use blue magic to make a concept real. And that’s after a whole life dedicated to study that branch of magic!” Jun, incredulous, exclaimed.  
  
“Hey, guys! Pay me a little more attention! I know Ohno’s speech bubble is cool, but the most important thing here is me and my transformation!” Nino protested, moving his paws over his head to catch his friend’s attention.  
  
“N-Nino?” Aiba asked hesitantly, looking at the mouse. “It’s that really you?”  
  
“Yes! Thanks to you, by the way.  Anyway, I’ve got lot of things to tell you, so listen to me.”   
  
Behind them, Ohno slowly leaned against the wall, feeling completely exhausted. Everybody was so engrossed on the conversation that they didn’t notice how terribly pale the first year student was.  
Unable to fight anymore against the sudden tiredness that enveloped him, Ohno closed his eyes and slowly slided down the wall until he collapsed on the bed, unconscious.  
  
Nino didn’t know what made him look in Ohno’s direction in that exact moment, maybe Ohno made some kind of noise or perhaps he felt something unusual, but the sight of his friend, as white as a sheet, collapsed on the bed, chilled him to the bones.  
  
“OHNO!” he shouted, running toward the unconscious boy.


	7. Chapter 7

Nino scrunched his nose nervously, remembering Ohno’s pale face when Jun and Aiba had brought him, still unconscious, to the school’s infirmary. _“He looked almost as white as the sheets,”_ the small mouse thought, rubbing his cheeks anxiously.   
  
He was hidden in Jun’s pocket, waiting impatiently for news about the first year student’s health. _“Why is the nurse taking such a long time?”_  
  
He felt Jun’s hand trying to calm him through the thick fabric of the jacket. “Shhh! Nino, stay quiet!” the tall student whispered. “They’ll notice you if you keep moving so much!”  
  
“And don’t talk either or people will see your speech bubble!” Jun hissed when he noticed that Nino was about to reply him.  
  
Suddenly, the door of the infirmary opened, startling them. A young nurse exited the room. She looked at the boys with an interrogative expression, “Are you friends of the first year student who fainted?”   
  
Jun nodded, covering his pocket and pushing Nino’s small, furry head down to prevent him from poking his head out to take a peek.  
  
“He’s o.k., don’t worry,” the nurse smiled reassuringly. “He’s just a bit exhausted. Nothing that a good night of rest can’t heal. But he should refrain from using any magic for a few days”  
  
“No magic?” Aiba asked, puzzled by the strange order from the nurse.   
  
“Yes,” she nodded, “The spells cast until now aren’t a problem because they have already used the needed amount of magic for their creation. However, casting any new spell could be dangerous for his health. That is until he replenishes his reserve of magic, of course.”   
  
“But why?” Jun asked, confused, frowning.  
  
“There are a few people in the world that are able to use their vital energy to cast a spell when their reserve of magic power is exhausted. They’re extremely rare, but your friend is one of them.”  
  
Seeing their faces of incomprehension, she tried to elaborate a bit more.  
  
“Every person with the capability to practice magic has a reserve of magic power for that purpose, though the quantity of magic that a person can store is different for each person,” she began to explain. “As you know, the capacity to store magic can be amplified through constant training and that’s the reason behind your practical classes. When their reserve of magical power reaches a critical low, the person develops the following symptoms: difficulty concentrating, tiredness, and the spells they cast are weaker than usual.”   
  
The overwhelming pang of guilt the little mouse felt when he heard the nurse’s words made his insides churn unpleasantly. _“He was getting sick using all his magic to help me and I didn’t notice anything,”_ he bit his lip, feeling remorse. _“He seemed distracted and a bit tired, that’s true, but as he is usually lost in his own world I didn't think it was important ... It’s entirely my fault. After all, I’m the one who's been studying magic for years. He didn’t even know what magic was until a few months ago!”_  
  
“I think Professor Tanaka told us something about that reserve of magic power in our first year,” Jun commented, interrupting Nino’s train of thought, “but I don’t remember hearing anything about people using their vital energy to cast a spell,” he added, looking perplexedly at the young woman.  
  
“That’s because that capability is really, really strange, only one person in a million can do it,” the nurse replied with a smile. “Normally, when the magic reserve of a person is exhausted, he or she is unable to cast any spell until it’s replenished again. You can think of it as a sort of safety measure for magical users. Your friend doesn’t have that limit so he can use his vital energy when his reserve is exhausted.”  
  
“But that’s really dangerous!” Aiba exclaimed, worried.  
  
The nurse nodded, “What’s more, your friend’s uniform indicates that he’s skilled in blue magic which is the most demanding kind of magic that exists. Especially the high level spells.”   
  
Aiba and Jun exchanged worried glances that surprised the woman. “Don’t worry,” she tried to calm them, “it’s unlikely that your friend will be casting any high level spells in his first year. And I assure you that the classes are prepared in a way to limit a student's use of power. He probably came to the school with his reserve of magic already low and began to use his vital energy instead without realizing it.”   
  
The nurse smiled reassuringly at them. “By the way, he’s awake now. You may visit him if you want,” with those words, she left them to see another patient.  
  
~~  
  
After making sure the first year student was o.k., Jun and Aiba left the infirmary, leaving Nino and Ohno alone in the room.  
  
After an awkward silence, Ohno took the unusually quiet mouse from its position on the near table. “Sorry for getting you worried,” he apologized, looking at the shiny eyes of the little rodent.   
  
Nino shook his head furiously. “I’m not angry with you,” he explained to the worried student, “it’s me whom I’m furious with.” Nino bit his lower lip, ashamed.   
  
Why should he blame Ohno? He was just trying to help him to get through his difficult situation. No, the one who should be blamed was him; putting the first year student at risk, making him use all his magic and not realising that he was getting sick in the process.   
  
“If you hadn't been helping me, none of this would have happened…” he averted his eyes, unable to look at Ohno’s face.  
  
Ohno looked at Nino with concern. “Nino,” he said, slightly strengthening his grip on the little rodent to grab his attention.   
  
The mouse stubbornly refused to look in his direction.   
  
The first year student sighed and gently moved the rodent's face, making it look at him.   
  
“Ninomiya Kazunari,” he fixed his own eyes on the mouse’s. “Nobody is to blame here. I chose to help you of my own free will,” he reassured the little mouse. “Don’t blame yourself, please,” he begged, releasing the mouse's head and scratching him behind his right ear to soothe him.  
  
This time, Nino didn’t avert his eyes from Ohno. He nodded reluctantly, still insecure about the whole thing but feeling calmer now.  
  
Ohno smiled brightly and yawned, looking like a sleepy kitten. “Now that we have fixed that, I’m going to take a little nap,” he decided, rubbing his eyes drowsily. He carefully left Nino on the bedside table and turned over to face the little mouse. A second later, the first year student was sleeping peacefully. Nino smiled, relieved, and moved close to Ohno. A few seconds later, the mouse was sleeping too, happily nested beside Ohno’s nape.  
  
Neither of them noticed the door of the infirmary closing quietly.  
  
~~  
  
 _“That mouse is Ninomiya Kazunari!? Ohno’s pet is the missing student!?”_ Sho thought, running down the corridor, while his mind kept replaying the scene he had just seen in the infirmary.   
  
The news about the first year student’s illness had worried him so much that he had immediately rushed to the infirmary to visit him. Trying to be as noiseless as possible so as not to disturb the patient’s rest, he had opened the door quietly.   
  
He was still behind the folding screen that separated the beds from the room’s entrance when he had heard Ohno talking with someone. Not wanting to intrude on his chat, he was about to leave when he had heard the patient mention the name of the missing student.  
  
 _“He called it Ninomiya Kazunari... and the mouse answered him through those strange, comic-like speech bubbles!”_ the student committee member rubbed his temples, confused.   
  
_“What the hell is happening here?”_


	8. Chapter 8

_“This is so boring!”_ Nino complained again, jumping out of his hamster wheel where he had been running since Ohno had left the room.   
  
Twitching his nose, the little mouse looked around, searching for something to do. After the ‘fainting’ incident, Ohno had been appointed by the school staff to attend special classes to learn how to control his magic. Nino wanted to accompany him, but the first year student had refused to bring him along, alleging that the teacher could notice the magic used to show the speech bubbles. The small rodent was still resentful of having been left behind,  
  
“Helloooo~,” a voice interrupted Nino’s grumpy mumblings, making him turn around to see Aiba entering the room.  
  
“What are you doing here?” he asked, surprised.   
  
“Your roommate asked me to keep you company while he is out,” Aiba replied with a smile. “And I thought that maybe you would be interested in going out and watching his practice. Just to make sure he is ok, you know?” he winked conspiratorially.   
  
Nino felt the tips of his ears becoming pink.   
  
“O.k. And don’t forget to take the walkie-talkie with you.”   
  
He hastily climbed up his friend’s trousers and hid inside one of his shirt pockets, paying no attention to the boy’s gleeful giggles. _“After all, someone has to keep Ohno under observation… right?”_  
  
~~  
  
 _“Should I tell the headmaster about the mouse’s real identity?”_ Sho asked himself for the umpteeth time.   
  
The president of the committee had been pondering over what to do about the amazing discovery he had made in the infirmary for days, but he still hadn’t made up his mind. One part of him was convinced that the best course of action would be telling a teacher about it. And yet something - maybe a voice of warning, - had stopped him every time he had headed towards the teacher’s room.   
  
_“Telling a teacher about Ninomiya’s transformation… wouldn’t it be the most natural thing to do? But what if there is a powerful reason behind all that secrecy?”_  
  
Rather confused and unable to concentrate in his classes, the responsible student had finally decided to confront the person himself. He had left a note in Ohno’s locker asking to meet the first year student behind the gym’s storeroom at lunch’s break.  
  
“Soon,” he hopped, “I will know what is happening here.”  
  
~~  
  
“Look! There he is!” Aiba whispered excitedly, pointing at the first year student.   
  
Hidden behind a row of lockers, Aiba and Nino watched the oblivious student opening his locker to put away the books he had used in his latest class. The moment the door opened, a little piece of paper fell down, catching Ohno’s attention. The first year student bent down and took the paper, studying it with curiosity. They saw him tilting his head interrogatively. Then he approximated a near group of girls and asked them something.  
  
“What’s that? What’s written in that note?” mumbled Nino, narrowing his eyes with suspicion.  
  
“Maybe it’s a love letter?” Aiba suggested innocently.  
  
“A love letter!?” Nino exclaimed. ”No, that’s impossible,” the small rodent firmly shook his head. “He came to the school only a few weeks ago and he spends most of his time in his room. I seriously doubt he has caught anyone’s eye in such small amount of time.”  
  
At that moment, the group of girls that had answered Ohno’s question passed near Aiba and Nino’s hideout, chatting animatedly.  
  
“The gym’s storeroom? Isn’t that place where most of the school’s couples start?” asked one of the girls. “You think he’s going to get a love confession?”  
  
“I wonder,” another girl answered. “He is… kind of cute, isn’t he? And he is a creation magic user! A powerful one, I’ve heard.” She looked dreamily in Ohno’s direction. “I wonder if he has a girlfriend already.”  
  
“Why? Are you interested?” joked another girl.  
  
They left the building, laughing.  
  
“Wh-what!” Nino stuttered. “I can’t believe my ears! The poor boy has just arrived at this school, he still is accommodating to his new surroundings and those harpies are ogling at him already! It’s outrageous! It’s-”  
  
“Look!” Aiba interrupted him. “He is leaving the hall.”  
  
“Follow him! Quickly!” the small mouse commanded his friend, twitching his nose nervously.   
  
The tall student rolled his eyes, but followed Nino’s frantic orders anyway. They exited the building and ran towards the gym, following Ohno closely. However, their chase got abruptly interrupted when a huge crowd of students walking towards the dinning hall, suddenly got in their way.  
  
“Where did he go?” Nino anxiously asked, trying to discern Ohno’s figure in the multitude.  
  
“There he is! He has just turned that corner!” Aiba exclaimed and ran after their friend, dodging the hungry students. He turned the corned but stopped abruptly when he saw Ohno talking with another boy, dressed in a grey uniform with red motifs.   
  
“What! Is it not a cute chick but a boy?” Aiba exclaimed, puzzled.   
  
“A boy?” Nino inquired, poking his head out of Aiba’s pocket. “Ah, I’ve seen him before! He is the president of the committee.” Nino squeaked.   
  
“Maybe he’s the one that left the note in Ohno’s locker?” whispered Aiba, trying to approximate Ohno and Sho as stealthy as he could.  
  
“That’s stupid!” Nino replied, his little heart beating furiously inside his chest. _“It’s true that he’s always swarming around Ohno… but surely, he would never go as far as confessing his love for him, would he?”  
_  
“I want to ask you something,” the committee’s president said, looking at Ohno intently.   
  
“O.k.” the other student replied, a bit puzzled by Sho’s seriousness.  
  
“And I hope you’ll answer me sincerely” the taller student lowered his voice and approximated Ohno until they were merely two steps away.   
  
“Look, look,” Aiba whispered excitedly. “He is about to confess!!”  
  
“Over my dead body!” the jealous rodent replied. Growling with rage, he jumped out of Aiba’s pocket and leapt on the offending student.  
  
“What I want to know is…” Sho’s words were interrupted by Nino`s outraged squeaks. The small mouse had reached his unaware prey and was furiously gnawing at Sho’s shoe.  
  
Both students looked at the enraged mouse, Ohno blinking owlishly and Sho with a shocked expression.   
  
“Well, what I want to know is why Ninomiya is bitting my shoe,” finally asked the president of the committee, trying to move away the feral beast. “Can you please stop that?” he politely begged Nino, “I assure you that I haven’t told anyone about your real identity!”  
  
Hearing those words, Nino stopped his attack and looked surprised at Sho.   
  
_“He knows who I am! How is that possible?”_  
  
The puzzled rodent allowed Ohno to lift him from the ground. The first year student carefully put him in his pocket and looked at the committee’s president with suspicion. “How do you know that?”  
  
A sudden thought seemed to occur to Ohno and he warily moved away from Sho. “Are you behind Nino’s poisoning attempt!?” he asked, narrowing his eyes. He took a defensive posture as if ready to cast an offensive spell.  
  
“Poisoning attempt?!” Sho squeaked, “What the hell are you talking about?!”  
  
~~  
  
Sho’s surprise made clear that he wasn’t related in anyway to Nino’s attempt of murder, so they decided to share with him the little information they have about the whole affair and the reason of Nino’s current mouse-like state. After all, five head’s – even if one of them was tiny and furry, - were better that four.  
  
“And what we do know?” Sho asked, decided to help his new friends in everything he could.  
  
“I think we should search for clues in Nino’s room” Jun proposed. “Even if they went through it when Nino disappeared, maybe they overlooked something.”  
  
They slipped in Nino’s room and spent the next two hours going methodically through Nino’s belongings.  
  
“Nothing! There is nothing here,” Jun complained. Frustrated, they returned to Ohno’s room to decide what they should do next.   
  
“I suppose the person who tried to poison Nino waited after the commotion calmed down and then cleaned all the incriminating clues,” Aiba hazarded.  
  
“But the police arrived immediately after the school realized that Ninomiya was missing, didn’t they? And the teachers had closed his room and put it under surveillance not to disturb the investigation so… why the police didn’t find anything then, not even the poisoned water bottle?” Sho pondered, scratching his chin pensively. “I can’t believe that they were so careless in their investigation. After all, he belongs to one of the most important families of the nobility…”  
  
“You belong to the nobility?” piped Ohno, puzzled, gaping at the small mouse.  
  
 “Well, in this school, almost every student belongs to a noble family or another,” Nino explained. “In fact, you’re one of the few students that are here thanks to a scholarship.”  
  
Then, the mouse turned towards Sho, who was in the opposite side of the room, seated on Ohno’s bed. “Please, call me Nino,” he said, “Every time I heard you mentioning Ninomiya’s name I think that you’re referring to my cousin.” The mouse scrunched his tiny nose with distaste, “He’s a jerk that insists on being addressed as Earl Ninomiya and hates my branch of the family for retain the dukedom.”  
  
Sho nodded, “O.k. Then, the person who tried to poison Nino had had to enter the room before the commotion to remove the poisoned bottle or any other clue he had left behind..”   
  
“So, how are we going to find out something, then?” Jun asked, frowning.  
  
“I don’t know,” sighed Sho, disheartened, “But it looks like a dead end to me.”  
  
All went silent, thinking of how they could keep investigating Nino’s poisoning.   
“Everything would be easier if there were a witness…” Aiba complained, depressed.  
  
Everybody began to nod in acquiescence when they were startled by Sho’s sudden exclamation. “That’s it! Aiba-kun, you’re a genius!”   
  
“Am I?” the latter asked with a quizzical expression. Jun and Nino snorted.  
  
The president of the committee nodded enthusiastically, patting the tall student on the back. “We can ask the door of the room!” he affirmed with a big smile plastered on his face.  
  
Jun looked at the thrilled member of the committee and then at the rest of the people in the room, “I think he has gone nuts,” he said, looking warily at Sho.  
  
“No, no, let me explain, please,” Sho replied, calming down a bit. He returned to his last position on Ohno’s bed and began his explanation. “You know that my speciality is Invocation magic, right?”  
  
Everybody nodded, confused, not understanding what the member of the committee was trying to convey. “Well, although this branch focuses on summoning creatures that belong to different realms like elementals, ghosts, demons, magical beings, etc. it also lets you summon - or rather “animate”- an object for a short period of time. This spell belongs to the proficient level of the Invocation branch and only a student specialized in this branch is permitted to learn it.”  
  
“Animate an object?” Ohno asked with curiosity. “Like in that cartoon’s movie: _The sorcerer’s apprentice_?”  
  
“That’s right! Something like that, but more complex,” Sho nodded and looked proudly at the astonished occupants of the room, “Using this spell, we could animate the door of Nino’s room or some piece of furniture and inquire them about the intruder!”


	9. Chapter 9

_“Theeee day beeeeforeeee a littleeee mouseeee eeeexiteeeed theeee room only two meeeen eeeenteeeered theeee room,”_ the door creaked.

“Why does it talks like that?” asked Aiba full of curiosity, pointing at the door of Nino’s room.

“Maybe it needs oil,” commented Ohno, tilting his head quizzically.

The old door let out another high-pitched creak, making Jun and Nino cringe, the wooden face on his surface smiling with hope, _“Oil! Yeeees, pleeeeaseeee! That would beeee reeeeally heeeelpful.”_

“We will grease it later,” hissed Jun, looking anxiously at both sides of the corridor. “We need to finish this before someone comes to the corridor and catches us talking with Nino’s door!”

“We better hurry,” nodded Sho. “Could you describe those men?” he asked the door. 

_“Oneeee is the owneeeer of theeee room... though heeee hasn’t eeeenteeeereeeed theeee room lateeeely,”_ the door replied pensively.

“Yeah, we know that,” replied Nino, twitching his pink nose impatiently. “What about the other man?”

_“I had neeeeveeeer seeeeeeeen him beeeeforeeee. Heeee was tall, thin and lookeeeed oldeeeer than the peeeeopleeee that usually cross theeee corridor in front of meeee,”_ the old door continued its explanation.

“That’s pretty generic,” complained Nino. “Nothing more? Do you remember any detail that made him look different from the rest of the students?”

“What colour were the motifs of his uniform?” asked Jun, trying to get more information. Finding the mysterious student shouldn’t be so difficult! After all, they were talking about someone getting access to a restricted area in which even the cleaning staff had to be accompanied to enter.

_“Colours? What areeeee colours? Sorry, I don‘t undeeeeerstand,”_ the door replied apologetically.

“Did that person access the room the day after the mouse left the room?” piped Ohno, scratching his chin pensively.

“Great idea!” Jun shot an approving glance towards Ohno.

_“Yeeeeah, I saw him neeeext day too. Heeee eeeenteeeereeeed wheeeen the peeeeopleeee of theeee corridor had leeeeft, carrying books and otheeeer things and beeeefore theeeey reeeeturn to put theeeem away insideeee theeeeir rooms,”_ added the door after thinking for a bit, its clear features starting to disappear.

“So, it was during class!” exclaimed Aiba.

“Well, I hope that we can work with that,” Sho sighed tiredly, wiping the sweat on his forehead, “because I’m drained and the spell is losing its force. The face won’t last too much longer.”

A second later, the face disappeared completely and the creaking voice returned to a normal squeak.

“We need to find out who didn’t attend class that day!” exclaimed Jun, “That’s our only clue to cut down the list of suspects.”

Everybody nodded and they left the corridor, arguing about how they could find out who was the person who hadn’t attended the classes the day when Nino had turned into a mouse.

“I’ll grease you later,” murmured Ohno, patting the door before following the other students.

The door let out a soft merry creak in response.

~~

 “I hope Sho has luck with the teachers.” Aiba paced nervously up and down the corridor, waiting for his new friend to exit the teacher’s lounge.

“If someone can get the attendance sheet it’s Sakurai sempai,” Ohno loyally affirmed without noticing Nino’s sour expression.

“Given that I’m a damn mouse, I could have looked at the attendance sheet too and nobody would have noticed,” the little mouse couldn’t help but grumble, showing his upper teeth, the bitter taste of jealousy still lingering in his mouth. Why was Oh-chan always so trustful of the committee’s president? Every time the older student mentioned the other boy’s name, Nino’s mood soured exponentially.

However, his jealous remark went unnoticed because the other students were startled by the sudden appearance of an old man dressed in an elegant suit. “Master Matsumoto, master Aiba… it has been a while since we met, hasn’t it?”

Aiba and Jun struggled to compose their surprised and guilty expressions before the old man realized they were doing something suspicious. The Potion student recovered first and tried to buy some time for his friends, “Ah, Morimoto-san, it’s been a long time,” he exclaimed, armed with his best smile.

“What are you doing here in the school? Has anything happened in Ninomiya’s manor?” added Jun worriedly.

“Nothing new since master Kazunari’s strange disappearance. Everybody in the manor is really worried,” the old man replied with a sad expression. “The Duke and the Duchess, who interrupted their diplomatic travel after hearing the horrible news, arrived this morning to the city. They talked immediately with the authorities in charge of the case and now they’re holding a meeting with the Dean.”

“I hope the authorities find out Nino’s whereabouts soon,” added Jun. “We’re really worried about him.”

“We hope that too,” the elegant man replied. “Well, I must go now,” he commented after taking a glance at his watch. He apologized politely and hurriedly turned around the corner.

“Who was he?” asked Ohno, “One of Nino’s relatives?”

“No, he’s the secretary of the Duke. He began to work for Nino’s grandfather many years ago. Then, when the latest died half a year ago, he kept working for the current Duke, Nino’s father,” replied Aiba.

“Did you hear that, Nino?” whispered Jun to the mouse hidden in his pocket. “Your parents are here, in the school. Do you want to tell them about the murder attempt?” 

Nino shook his head slowly. Until they knew the true identity of the perpetrator that had managed to trespass the school’s security measures so easily, he was still in danger. If they told his parents about his situation and the fact that he was still alive came to light, that person could try to kill him again. _“And I’m sure he won’t fail a second time, not now that I’ve been turned into a defenceless mouse,”_ he grimaced.

Suddenly, another thought, much more frightening, came to him, _“What if the assassin realizes that my friends know something about my whereabouts and try to use them as a bait to catch me?”_ He paled, imagining Jun, Aiba or Ohno injured, even dead, by the assassin’s hand. No, he decided; to assure everybody’s safety, his existence must be a secret until they find out who had tried to kill him.

A second later, Sho exited the teacher’s lounge and walked towards them, his face glowering with a contained expression of triumph. “I’ve got the attendance sheet,” he whispered. “Quick, we need to gather somewhere to examine it!”

~~

“There wasn’t any student marked absent that day! How could THAT be possible?” protested Jun, kicking furiously the small table where the attendance sheet was placed on.

“I can’t believe it myself,” agreed Sho, slowly shaking his head in disbelief, “There are always some students who skip class!”

Trying to overcome his discouragement, Ohno took the attendance sheet and studied it again, reluctant to let their only clue slip through his fingers so easily. He stubbornly checked the information of the sheet until something strange grabbed his attention. “There weren’t any students absent... but one of the substitute teachers arrived half and hour later to his class,” he frowned, placing his finger on the name of the suspicious teacher.

“Really?!”

Four pair of eyes looked astonished at the name pointed by the first year student.

“It’s true!” exclaimed Jun, “That teacher arrived later to his class that day!” he took the attendance sheet and read the side notes of that class. “Here it says that he claimed he felt a bit sick that morning but he tried to give the class anyway.”

“But if he’s the culprit, he could have used that time to check if Nino was dead and erase all the incriminating traces…” Aiba reasoned, scratching his chin pensively.

“Well, whether he’s the person who tried to poison Nino or not, he’s our only suspect right now. I propose we investigate his whereabouts and movements that day,” Sho suggested and everybody nodded in acquiescence.

With those words, the member of the student committee took the attendance sheet and left the room to return it to the teachers before they could suspect a thing.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, real life got in the way. Please enjoy!

_“Sakurai-sempai can do this, Sakurai-sempai will be able to do that… Since the president of the committee joined forces with us, that’s all he talks about,”_ Nino grumbled jealously, running along the eaves of the teacher’s building. _“I’ll show Oh-chan that I can do things too, even if I am trapped in this useless mouse form!”_  
  
The soft taps of his little paws, scratching the eaves’ metallic surface, were partially muffled by the loud chirping of the crickets calling for their mates in the middle of the night.   
  
Waiting near the teacher’s open window, Nino went through his plan one more time. In fact, it was really simple; before his friends could do anything the next morning and Sho could prove again his worthiness in front of a dazzled Ohno, he was going to find the incriminating clue in the teacher’s bedroom, taking advantage for once of his mouse-ish abilities.   
   
With that purpose, he had abandoned Ohno’s bedroom when the older student had fallen asleep and had ran through the school buildings, searching for an entrance to the teacher’s bedroom. Fortunately for him, the last days of summer had been so hot that almost everybody in the school slept with their windows open.  
   
Cautiously peeking inside the room, Nino made sure that the teacher was sound asleep in his bed.   
  
_“That’s my chance!”_ Imagining Ohno’s face of admiration when he showed everybody his discovery; the little mouse felt his heart swell with pride and the familiar warm feeling of happiness that always flooded him whenever he thought about Ohno, Ohno’s shy smile, Ohno’s cutely scrunched nose…   
  
O.k. now it wasn’t time to daydream! He shook his head to clear it. If he wanted to be praised by Ohno, he needed to find some kind of clue in the teacher’s room first!  
  
The little rodent entered through the window‘s gap, careful not to make a single noise. He began to search around the papers scattered on the desk, thanking the light of the moonlight that entered through the window. He wasn’t sure what he was exactly looking for, but he was confident that we would know it as soon as he found it.  
  
Hours later, after going through the papers on the desk, the garbage in the trash can and even the clothes stored in the closet, Nino felt much less confident and infinitely more pissed off. Finally, when he was on the verge of giving up, he had a stroke of luck. He was walking around the room, desperate to find something, when he noticed that the sound his paws did on a certain wooden plank was a bit odd.   
  
It sounded as if it were a hole under the plank!   
  
His hopes rose. Finally he seemed to have found something! Sniffling nervously, he searched till he found a small gap between the table and the wall, so insignificant that only a person who knew it was there would have noticed it. He squeezed his little body into the hole, pawning at the plank to force his way through it. After huffing and puffing for a few minutes - maybe he shouldn’t have eaten that extra piece of cheese that night, - the small rodent finally passed through the gap, reaching the bottom of the hole. Cautiously, he felt around with his paws and was rewarded when his left paw brushed against a folded paper at the end of the cavity.   
  
This must be it! After all, nobody would take the trouble to hide something so carefully if it wasn’t important. He seized the paper with its teeth and quickly tried to exit the hole.   
  
He had half of his body out of the plank when a sudden sound coming from the bed startled him, making his heart race crazily inside his chest. He tried to exit the hole and hide somewhere, but he found he was stuck. With bright, frightened eyes, Nino looked in the bed‘s direction hopping the teacher was only changing his posture.  But the man turned around and sat on the bed, ready to stand up.   
  
Nino fought, as silently as he could against the plank that was trapping him, cursing his rotten luck.   
  
The heavy, menacing steps of the man got closer and closer to the mouse position, making Nino fight more desperately against the wood. Finally, with a weak popping sound that sounded almost like a gun fire to the little rodent ears, he freed himself and ran under the desk, dragging the paper he had found behind him. He shrunk under the drawers, the blood pounding so loud in his ears that was almost deafening.  
  
Had he been caught?  Did the teacher put some kind of magical alarm in the plank to alert him of intruders?  
  
The teacher’s steps stopped in front of the desk… and he grabbed a glass placed on top of it. Then, he poured some water, drank it and returned to his bed, unaware of the little intruder and his stolen piece of paper.  
  
When the loud snores of the man broke the silence of the room for the second time, Nino finally sighed in relief. He hadn’t been discovered. He slowly stretched his paws, relaxing his stiff muscles. Deciding that he had tempted his luck enough that night, the small rodent climbed up the desk and escaped from the room holding the piece of paper between his teeth.   
  
He had been successful! Ohno would be so proud of him…  
  
~~  
  
“N-Nino?” the tremulous voice of his room-mate startled him when he entered the bedroom through the open window.  
  
Nino looked surprised at Ohno, dropping the paper he was holding. The first year student looked pale, sweat glistening on his forehead, and his hands were trembling when he hurried up to grab the little mouse.  
  
“Where did you go!?” hissed the distressed student clutching the bewildered mouse in his quivering hands. “Don’t you know how worried I was when I got up and didn’t find you anywhere? I thought the assassin had found you!”  
  
 _He had never seen Ohno so angry._  
  
“I-I went to search for clues i-in the teacher’s bedroom…” Nino stuttered, blinking nervously. He would have never guessed that the calm student could get so frantic by his disappearance. “I found something hidde-” he added, trying to apologize when Ohno interrupted him.  
  
“I don’t care what you found!”  The older student exclaimed furiously. Nino, shocked, closed his mouth with an audible snap, looking at the angry student with wide eyes and shaking slightly.  
  
Looking at Nino’s frightened face, Ohno grimaced, breathing deeply. He closed his eyes and spent the next minutes trying to calm himself.   
  
When his hands stopped trembling and his heart beat at its normal rate, Ohno sighed deeply and rubbed Nino’s head with his calloused thumb, apologizing for his furious outburst. Then, he slowly returned to the bed holding the shocked mouse; the piece of paper was left forgotten on the floor. He laid on the bed and put Nino beside him on the pillow, still encircling the little mouse with his right hand as if he wasn’t completely sure that it was real. The first year student fixed his bright eyes on the mouse and whispered, “Never do that again, o.k.?”  
  
Nino just nodded silently, ashamed of himself for causing Ohno so much anguish only to brag about his discovery in front of his friends the next morning.  
  
“O.k.,” he promised, rubbing his head against Ohno’s hand contritely. Ohno just smiled at him sweetly, too exhausted to maintain the eyes open now that the nervous energy, fuelled by his anxiousness, had abandoned him.   
  
“Good.” The first year student replied before falling asleep, his hand never breaking contact with Nino’s body.  
  
~~  
  
“So,” Jun said with frightening calm, “You risked your safety and our plans only to get a blank paper?”   
  
Nino shrank under the weight of Jun’s scorching glare.   
  
“I still don’t understand why you did something so stupid!” piped Sho, puzzled, trying to understand Nino’s motives.  
  
The little mouse grimaced, feeling the tips of his ears reddening in shame, and tried his best to avoid the furious and disapproving eyes of his friends; especially Ohno’s hurt puppy eyes.   
  
He had had enough disappointed looks from the short student for a lifetime. _Who would have guessed that his attempt to impress Ohno would end so badly?_  
  
He risked taking a quick glance at Ohno, but the older student was lost in his thoughts, looking without seeing at his hands.  
  
“But there must be something in this paper,” Nino murmured quietly, almost inaudibly, “why would someone hide it if it wasn’t important?”  
  
Hearing his words, Jun snorted and was going to add something more when Aiba interrupted him.  
  
“I think he is right,” the tall student stated, looking the paper against the light with a pensive frown.   
  
Nino looked at his friend gratefully; maybe he could prove the worthiness of his discovery with Aiba’s help.  
  
“I want to try something,” the tall student added, “Jun, can you conjure a little fire ball?”   
  
“Of course,” replied Jun, looking puzzled at his friend.   
  
“O.k., I want you to put the fire ball under the paper careful to make only the smoke touch the paper.”  
  
Unable to hide the scepticism in his face, Jun did what his friend wanted. “Are you sure-”  
  
“Look!” Sho exclaimed, pointing at the drawing that was starting to get visible on the paper. “There is something written there!”  
  
Everybody gathered around Aiba and looked surprised at the image that was appearing on the paper.   
  
“It looks like some kind of drawing,” murmured Ohno, blinking owlishly at the complex drawing. “There are some words too!” he exclaimed a second later when a refined handwriting began to appear below the drawing.   
  
“The drawing… doesn’t look familiar?” murmured Jun, frowning pensively while he examined the paper.  
  
“Let me see it! Let me see it!” exclaimed Nino, who was running madly on the desk, trying to get a glimpse of the paper. Without a word, Ohno extended his hand, helping Nino to climb up to his shoulder; where the little mouse could watch the paper perfectly.  
  
“It’s my family’s coat of arms!” shrieked Nino, startling them. “But… there is something wrong… This is the older version that only my grandfather used.”  
   
His friends gasped, their eyes fixed on the paper. Did that coat of arms mean that a member of Nino’s family was behind the poisoning attempt? Surely it can’t be.  
  
They waited impatiently until the words were completely visible.  
  
 _“I believe I gave you perfectly clear orders: to kill the heir of Ninomiya’s family; and now you are telling me that you are unable to find the body? Resolve this matter quickly or this will be the last thing you will regret!”_     
  
“It seems like a message from the real assassin… and it’s someone using the coat of arms of your family!” Sho exclaimed, his eyes as big as saucers.  
  
“A family member… maybe Nino’s cousin!?” guessed Aiba. “He has made no effort to hide his intention to get the dukedom from Nino’s branch of the family!”  
  
“Or maybe is someone close enough to the family to be able to use a paper with their coat of arms on it,” murmured Jun.  
  
“If someone wants to get the dukedom so badly that he tried to kill the heir… wouldn’t be Nino’s parents in danger too?” murmured Ohno, looking worriedly at the piece of paper in Sho’s hands.  
  
Hearing Ohno’s words, Nino’s little heart skipped a beat, “You are right! I need to contact my parents!” He was about to jump from Ohno’s shoulder when Jun stopped him.  
  
“Wait a moment Nino!” the tall student exclaimed, “if we don’t know who the culprit is we’ll only put ourselves in danger!”   
  
Nino frowned stubbornly, “But I need to warn them! They could be sharing the mansion with the assassin!”  
  
“I could use the same spell I used with the door to find who wrote it,” suggested helpfully Sho, his expression brightening, but Aiba shook his head, “I think the paper is too fragile for that kind of spell.”  
  
Ohno took the paper from Sho’s hands with a thoughtful expression, “I think I have a couple of spells that could be useful…”


	11. Chapter 11

“How is my portrait going?” asked Nino, climbing to the older student’s shoulder to take a peek at his work.  
  
“Unfortunately, it is not detailed enough to be useful,” Ohno sighed, looking the drawing with disappointment and placing it on the pile of Nino’s portraits he had been drawing during the last hour. “I need to make a much more detailed one to be able to cast a successful “Disguise” spell on it.”  
  
“But it looks exactly as me,” protested Nino, looking at the detailed drawing that Ohno had discarded.  
  
The first year student shook his head and rubbed his eyes tiredly. “Believe me, it’s not detailed enough.” He massaged his right wrist, stiff from all those hours spent drawing. “I’m not used to drawn following other people’s descriptions and our casual meeting, weeks ago, isn’t enough to remember all the necessary details. I need to find a way to make a better drawing,” he sighed.  
  
“I confess that the part about using a “Searching” spell to find the owner of the paper was a bit difficult to grasp but I finally caught it … however, what I can’t comprehend is how are you going to make a - how did you call it? - A Nino’s costume? To deceive the murderer and expose him,” whined Aiba, interrupting Nino and Ohno’s chat.    
  
The first year student took carefully the mouse perched on his shoulder and put it on the desk before massaging his tired shoulders. He turned around to look at Aiba, who was seated beside Jun on his bed.   
  
“It’s an easy spell,” he explained for the seventh time, “you just need to draw something detailed enough and then enchant the picture to be a costume. It doesn’t matter the size of the person who is using the costume or the size of the resulting thing you’re…” Ohno interrupted his explanation. By the look of incomprehension plastered on his friends’ face, they weren’t going to understand it even if he repeated his explanation a hundred more times.  
  
“Wait, I think it will be easier if I show you how it works.” He began to search through his drawing notebooks until he finally found what he was searching for. “Here it is,” he said with a bright smile, showing the other students the drawing of a red-tailed hawk. The image was so detailed that it almost looked as if they were watching the real bird in front of them but in a smaller size.   
  
The rest of the students looked at the picture, too astonished to say a word, until Sho finally blurted out, “Y-You drew _this_?” The eyes of the member of the committee were almost bulging while he pointed at Ohno’s drawing with a trembling hand.  
  
Ohno nonchalantly dismissed their admiration, “My father’s hobby is falconry and I had a lot of free time when I was keeping an eye on the livestock.”   
  
Without further ado, the first year student closed his eyes and concentrated his magic on the drawing. A moment later, instead of the drawing of the hawk, he held a strange cloak, so light and transparent that almost seemed made of moonlight and spider’s web.   
  
“And now you only have to get dressed with it,” with and elegant movement, Ohno put the cloak on and a sudden light blinded the occupants of the room.   
  
When they carefully opened their eyes, in front of them there was a vigilant red-tailed hawk, perched on the back of the desk chair that Ohno was previously occupying.  
  
“Holy cow!” exclaimed Jun, startled, jumping out of his seat.   
  
“O-Ohno?” stuttered Sho, dumbfounded.  
  
Aiba couldn’t utter a word, just point openmouthed at the calm bird that was intensely staring at them with its head slightly tilted.   
  
“As I asked before, WHAT kind of freaking genius are you?!” Nino exclaimed, his eyes almost popping out of his head.   
  
The bird blinked a few times and began to spruce up its feathers, “It’s just a simple spell I used to cast when I wanted to escape from the farm tasks or to draw a wild animal.”  
  
Hearing Ohno’s voice coming out from the brown bird of prey was so eerie that Aiba extended his hand trying to touch the bird, only to reassure himself that it was real. The tall student’s hand went through the bird without altering the image.  
  
“Why can’t I touch you?” he asked, puzzled.  
  
The bird let out a high-pitched cry and flapped its wings. A second latter, its image trembled and was replaced with Ohno’s figure holding the bright cloak. “I don’t understand it myself,” the short student affirmed, shrugging his shoulders and folding the cloak, “but it’s as if the image and the body were in other dimension and people were only able to watch the image but could not touch it.”    
  
The rest of the students just looked at him in shock, trying to wrap their minds around the incredible power the first year student seemed to posses. In all their lives they had never heard of any other creational magical user that could make such complex spells. And Ohno had learned to cast them naturally, all by himself! It was unnerving to think how close had Ohno’s incredible abilities been of never being discovered, the older boy spending all his life in his little farm thinking he wasn’t a magical user at all.      
  
~~  
  
 “I think it’d be more prudent if you stay with me from now on,” Ohno suggested to the little mouse, extending his hand for Nino to jump on it. “Just in case the teacher had some kind of alarm spell on that plank,” he added with a frown.   
  
After Nino’s last solo adventure, the first year student was reluctant to leave him alone for a second. Who knew if the teacher had discovered that his letter had disappeared?  He wasn’t willing to take that risk, not now that he needed to go to his morning classes, nor ever.  
  
“O.k.”  Nino let Ohno lift his small body to the pocket of his uniform.   
  
The mouse student felt so tired that morning that the proposition sounded like music for his little, round ears. He didn‘t understand how Ohno could be so alert after spending most of the night discussing how to overcome the problem of Nino’s drawing with the other four. Besides, he wasn’t reluctant to accompany the first year student; in fact, it was quite the opposite.  
   
He curled up in a little ball of fur, delightedly sniffling Ohno’s scent and enjoying the warmth of his body. He yawned, lulled by Ohno’s soft voice explaining him something.   
  
He was abruptly woken up from his peaceful slumber by a sudden movement that made him roll inside the pocket.  
  
 _“What-?”_  
  
“Oh, sorry. I wasn’t paying attention,” a worried apology interrupted Nino’s question.   
  
The little rodent, intrigued, carefully poked his head out and looked at the scene in front of him. A flustered first year student was kneeled down, picking up her things scattered on the floor. She has presumably collided with Ohno in her haste to enter the classroom.   
  
“Don’t worry,” replied Ohno with ease, kneeling down to help her. He quickly picked up the girl’s pair of glasses, before some absent-minded student stomped on them. “Here you have,” he said gallantly, offering her the pair of glasses and some books.  
  
“Oh, thank you!” the girl thanked him, reddening, “I’m almost blind without them,” she assured Ohno with a smile too flirtatious for Nino’s taste. The little mouse glared at the girl with suspicion.    
  
“Oh, then it’s a relief that I’ve picked up those before…” Ohno interrupted himself and his eyes glazed over, looking at an undetermined point over the girl’s head. “A pair of glasses that make you able to see…,” he murmured, lost in his thoughts.   
  
“A-Are you o.k.?” the worried girl asked him after some seconds, hesitantly extending her hand to place it on his shoulder.  
  
“That’s it!” Ohno exclaimed, jumping from the floor and scaring the other student. He shook the astonished girl’s hands gratefully and sprinted corridor down towards his room.  
  
~~   
  
“Shouldn’t you be in class right now?” Nino asked the first year student, puzzled by his strange behaviour.  
  
“Don’t worry about that,” murmured Ohno, frantically drawing something on his drawing notebook. “It doesn’t matter if I miss one or two classes but this,” he said, giving the finishing touches to his drawing, “this could be matter of life and death.” After checking his drawing, he proudly showed Nino his art work.   
  
“A pair of glasses…,” Nino deadpanned, raising one eyebrow. Maybe Ohno was suffering from a serious case of fatigue?   
  
“Yeah,” affirmed Ohno with enthusiasm, “a pair of glasses to see the real you!”   
  
Without further ado, the first year student focused his magic on his drawing. A second later, a pair of glasses glowing in a pale blue light appeared on his hand.  
  
“Let’s try them, o.k.?” he proposed excitedly, putting on the glasses and fixing his eyes on the rodent’s form situated just half a meter away from him. Nino, intrigued, stared him back tilting his little furry head.    
  
With a choked gasp, Ohno brusquely backed away from Nino, knocking over his chair in his haste and falling to the floor with a loud thump. With his face reddening intensely, the first year student frenziedly took the glasses off, looking anywhere but in Nino’s direction.  
  
“Wha-What’s wrong?” Nino, shocked by his strange behaviour, anxiously asked running towards him.  
  
“No-Nothing,” Ohno gulped nervously and moved away from him, averting his eyes from the little mouse form. “I-it’s just that the glasses worked better than I expected,” he added with an embarrassed expression.  
  
“Better? In what way?” Nino asked, confused.  
  
“T-They let me see you…” Ohno tried to explain, still looking away.  
  
“Then, they work. That’s perfect!”  
  
“No, you don’t understand it,” Ohno quickly contradicted him. “They let me see you **completely**.”  
  
“Completely? What are you talking about?” Nino scratched his nose, confused.  
  
“Let’s say that they let me see you without your mouse ‘costume’,” replied Ohno, as red as a tomato, stubbornly fixing his eyes on his hands.   
  
“Without my mouse cost-, Oh!” Nino blushed, finally getting what Ohno was trying to convey.  
  
“Yeah, ‘oh‘,” nodded Ohno, the tip of his ears reddening even more.  
  
~~  
  
“O.k.,” exclaimed Sho, rubbing his hands gleefully, “This morning, the invitation to Nino’s house in reply of the message we sent his parents with a spirit arrived. This was the last piece of our plan. We finally have everything ready to catch the real culprit!”  
  
“Yeah, and we also have a drawing of him for the “Disguise” spell,” nodded Jun. “By the way,” he commented looking carefully at the drawing, “how did you manage to make a drawing as detailed as this? Nino almost seems alive, though his expression is a bit… embarrassed?” added Jun, tilting his head quizzically.  
  
Ohno and Nino exchanged involuntary glances and blushed deeply.  
  
“Don’t become obsessed with little details,” replied hurriedly Nino. “It’s the fact that all the preparations are ready what is important!”  
  
Jun snorted, hiding his smirk. He wasn’t sure about what had happened between Nino and the first year student, but it was clear that they were very reluctant to talk about it.  
  
“I’ve talked with the Dean about the invitation your parents sent us,” added Sho. “He was surprised but didn’t make any objection to our travel. We’ll leave tomorrow morning and, with a bit of luck, the teacher won’t suspect a thing.”  
  
“Shouldn’t we do something about him?” asked Ohno, worried. “I don’t like the idea of leaving him free and without surveillance behind us.”  
  
“Don’t worry about that,” commented Aiba smugly. “I’ve prepared a forgetting potion for him that it’ll make him forget about us at least for two days.”  
  
Everybody looked astonished at the smirking student.  
  
“How did you that?” asked the president of the committee, his eyes widened in surprise.   
  
“And how do you know that it will work?” interrupted him Nino, narrowing his eyes in suspicion.  
  
Aiba looked a bit uncomfortable, “Well… the truth is…” He glanced at Nino warily.  
  
“Yeeees?” questioned him Nino. The little mouse was getting more and more suspicious of his friend by each passing second.  
  
“I tested it some time ago,” replied Aiba in a little, apologetic voice, looking at everywhere but Nino.  
  
“And who was the testing subject?” said Nino, walking menacingly towards his lanky friend.  
  
Aiba gulped and tried to move away from the little feral beast.   
  
“Don’t try to evade the question…” the mouse warned him.  
  
“O.k., o.k., I tested it on you!” Aiba yelped finally. “I’m really sorry about testing my potion on you, but I wanted to borrow your homework and you were being really unreasonable about it!”  
  
Nino growled, enraged, and jumped towards the tall student, who screamed scared.  
  
Ohno hurried to catch Nino before the angered rodent could harm his friend. “It’s o.k. Nino. You didn’t notice anything then and now we have the certainty that the potion will work.” He petted his little friend to calm him.   
  
Nino struggled a bit but finally stopped moving, encouraged by Ohno’s shooting touch.   
  
“O.k., I let it pass this time,” he magnanimously conceded.  
  
Aiba sighed in relief.  
  
 _“But just because I can’t make you as much harm as a mouse than as a human,”_ he added to himself, shooting an evil glance at Aiba. _“Just wait till I recover my human body, Aiba. Just wait.”_


	12. Chapter 12

“Is everything ready?” asked Sho, for the umpteenth time, wringing his hands nervously.   
  
“Yeah,” answered Jun, rolling his eyes. “You asked the same thing just a few minutes ago. Please, calm yourself or they will get suspicious,” he added, pointing to the half-closed door that led to the living room.  
  
Aiba, who was trying to hear the conversation in the other room, raised a hand, asking for silence. “Shhhhh!” he hissed, “I can’t hear a thing if with all the noise you‘re making!” he whispered.  
  
 _[That morning]_  
  
As soon as they arrived to the mansion, the butler led them to the Duke’s studio.   
  
“We were waiting for you,” greeted them the Duke, with a warm smile. He dismissed the butler with a nod and motioned them to sit down.   
  
“It’s been a while since we’ve met, hasn’t it?” commented the Duchess, serving them tea and pastries. “But I don’t remember meeting you,” she added, looking politely at Sho and Ohno. “Are you Kazu’s friends?”  
  
“Just a moment, darling,” Nino’s father interrupted her. Raising a hand, he cast an “Isolating spell” to make sure that no one was able to hear their conversation. “Well, now I made sure nobody can hear us we can continue… You send us a message saying that our son was alive so, where is he?”  
  
Ohno searched in his pocket and took out the little mouse in his hand. “He’s here,” he said shyly, showing Nino’s parents the rodent.  
  
The Duke and the Duchess looked at the mouse open-mouthed. “Wha-”  
  
“Hi Dad, hi Mum!” Nino greeted them, waving his furry paw.  
  
~~  
  
It took them three hours to convince the Duke and the Duchess that the little mouse was indeed their son and to explain them what had happened since Nino had been poisoned.   
  
“To sum up, thanks to Ohno, we have the chance to catch the real culprit behind Nino’s murder attempt,” concluded Jun, patting Ohno on the shoulder.  
  
The Duke and the Duchess looked gratefully at the first year student, who blushed deeply under their warm gaze.   
  
“We can’t thank you enough, Satoshi-kun,” the Duchess affirmed, taking Ohno’s hands between hers. The Duke nodded, holding Nino in his hands. “I’ve never seen a magician as capable as you,” he added. “That “Disguise” spell you’ve shown us… I’m amazed beyond words!”  
  
Ohno blushed even more, stuttering in a timid attempt to rest importance to his skill.   
  
Noticing that Ohno felt uncomfortable with all that praise, Nino took pity on him and skilfully redirected the conversation to the main topic; their plan to catch the person who had ordered his poisoning.  
  
“As we explained you, we’ve found that the culprit must be one of the inhabitants of this house,” the little rodent resumed, walking up and down the table where they have put him.  
  
“I still find hard to believe that someone in this house could have schemed your death, my son,” Nino’s father interrupted him, rubbing his temples tiredly. “Even if the letter with the instructions to the killer had my father’s seal, it still seems like a bad joke to me.”   
  
“I know father,” Nino stopped and looked at his parents sadly. “I would have never believed it myself if it wasn’t for that proof. But all the test we conducted gave as the same answer: the culprit is someone of this household.”  
  
Nino’s father grimaced. They were a noble and rich family, sure, but they had never been anything else but respectful and thankful with all the people that worked for them, no matter how humble was their condition. Every year, they donated big amounts of money to help those who were less fortunate than them. They had a good relationship with all the other noble families of the kingdom and had never been in any kind of dispute with anyone. Could be his own brother behind all that had happened? He had always envied him for inheriting the title but, could he hate his family that much? Could he hate them to the point of scheming the assassination of his own nephew to give his son the chance to inherit the title?  Or was there another person? Someone who had never been considered a menace. An employee, maybe even a close friend, who had always smiled to them on the surface, but had been plotting his family demise’s behind their backs all this time?   
  
A sudden shiver run up and down his spine. The Duke had always thought his family didn’t have a single enemy in the world. He had been wrong.    
  
“I’ll send a message to gather the suspects in the living room,” Nino’s father said with a resolute expression. “It’s time to find out who tried to kill you, my son.”  
  
 _[Current moment]_  
  
“My cousin has finally arrived,” whispered Nino, peeking at the people gathered in the living room through the small gap of the half-open door. “It’s time for you to make your grand appearance,” he said turning around and facing his friends. “I’ll wait here with the magic cloak until the moment when the “Searching” spell pointed out the culprit.”  
  
Jun looked at them one by one and nodded, “Let’s go!”  
  
Without more preambles, they opened the door and entered the living room.  
  
Everybody fixed their surprised eyes on them.  
  
“Aren’t you some of my cousin’s friends?” asked Nino’s cousin, arrogantly raising one eyebrow.   
  
“What are you doing here?” exclaimed his father outraged, “This is a private meeting!”  
  
“I invited them,” coldly replied the Duke. “They are going to help us with a little problem…”  
  
“What little problem?” asked Nino’s uncle with suspicion.   
  
“Finding the person who ordered my son’s assassination!”  
  
~~  
  
“We found this letter in possession of the man hired to poison Nino,” affirmed Jun, holding the incriminating letter in his hand. “And this,” he added, pointing at the blue sphere resting on the mahogany table behind him, “it’s a spell to find the owner of the object placed inside it.”   
  
“Bullshit!” exclaimed Nino’s cousin. “Nobody is able to cast a spell like that!”  
  
“Unfortunately for the assassin, there is someone who is able to, indeed,” the Duke retorted with a shark-like smile. “ But if you don’t believe me, lets prove it with a little, innocent game.”   
  
He took a small, leather bag out of a drawer and opened it. He put his golden tie pin inside and offered the bag to his spouse. Nino’s mother took off the silver hairpin that held her bun, leaving her long, dark hair free, and put it inside the bag. She glared at Nino’s uncle, daring him to refuse to participate in the test. Nor he, neither his bad-mannered son dared.     
  
The Duke beckoned his secretary over. The old man seemed a bit apprehensive for a moment, but he quickly came to the Duke’s side.  
  
“You too, my friend,” the Duke held the bag in his secretary direction. “I don’t want to give anyone a reason to believe that there is some kind of trick behind this magic spell.”  
  
From his hideout behind the room‘s door, Nino thought he had seen a flicker of doubt in the old man’s eyes for a second before he had put a small, silver fountain pen inside the bag, but it had been so brief… Could he have imagined it?   
  
“And  now, my incredulous brother,” the Duke continued, “come here and take something from this bag. Then put it inside the blue sphere, please.”  
  
Nino’s uncle did as the Duke had said with a grimace of disdain. It was obvious he believed his brother was making a fool of himself. Who had heard of that kind of spell before? Everybody knew it was impossible to track other people’s belongings with magic!  
  
He took Nino’s cousin ring out of the bag and put it inside of the small sphere with a snort of contempt.   
  
The ball began to sparkle, slowly at the beginning but growing in intensity and velocity with each passing second. Finally, the ball lost its solidity and became a bright blue light hovering over the mahogany table.  
  
A few minutes later, the man’s jaw almost dropped to the floor when the blue sphere sparkled and slowly gravitated to his son’s direction, finally stopping in front of him.  
  
“Bu-but it’s impossible!!” he exclaimed, astonished.  
  
“As you can see,” the Duke replied, “it isn’t. Let‘s begin!”  
  
Following the Duke’s command, Jun inserted the letter in the ball and moved a few steps away.   
  
The light floated erratically around the room followed by the anxious eyes of the people gathered there. Everybody held their breath when it approached Nino’s uncle, who looked at the light incredulously and backed away from it.  
  
“I’m innocent! I’ve done nothing!” the old man protested, outraged, colliding with the Duke’s secretary in his hasty retreat. The secretary quickly moved away from the irate man, and situated himself near the elegant mahogany bookcase. At that moment, the light surprisingly changed its route and slowly floated towards the old secretary, who looked at it stunned.  
  
“W-What?!” spluttered Nino’s father, shocked, when the pale blue light finally stopped over his secretary. Everybody looked at the old man open-mouthed, the shock clearly written in their faces.   
  
“Then, it was the secretary?” loudly whispered Aiba to Jun.   
  
“It must be an error, Sir,” protested the secretary, offended. “I’ve faithfully served your family all my life, no matter what this stupid light say.”  
  
Ohno grimaced, knowing that his spell had signalled the real culprit. Seeing Nino’s father hesitate, he made a sign to Nino, who was waiting outside the room holding between his paws the little cloak imbued with Ohno’s magic.  
  
After a little flash of blue light, Nino entered the room walking calmly. “Are you completely sure of that?” he asked, shocking everybody.   
  
Watching him, something seemed to change in the old man’s eyes and he suddenly changed his attitude from one of calm servility to one of pure hatred. As fast as lighting, he raised his hand and threw a fireball at Nino before someone could stop him. As it had happened with Aiba’s hand when Ohno was disguised as a hawk, the fireball went through Nino’s body without causing him any harm.  
  
The secretary swore rudely and was beginning to prepare another offensive spell when a movement in the other corner of the room alerted him.   
  
“Stop!” he shouted, raising his left hand in Jun‘s direction. The young offensive magic user, who had been trying to surprise the secretary approaching him from his left side, stopped immediately.  The old man was holding a small, red ball with a strange symbol painted in blank ink.  
  
“A m-magical bomb!” exclaimed Sho, stunned.  
  
Everybody froze, looking at the small bomb with fear. Although it seemed small and innocuous, the little bomb was one of the most destructive magical artefacts in the world. Years ago, the King had banned them due to their great power of destruction, able to reduce to ashes the biggest city of the kingdom, killing millions of people.  
  
The terrified silence was broken by a strange, chocked laugh coming from the secretary. The old man contorted his face in a sneer, the madness clearly shinning in his eyes. “Morimoto-san do this, Morimoto-san do that,” he intoned, fixing his cold blue eyes on the Duke. “All these years obeying the orders of those below me…”  
  
“W-what?” murmured Nino’s father, confused.  
  
“Mine,” kept saying the old man, without paying any attention to the Duke’s question. “Everything should be mine if it weren’t for the Great Duke!” he almost shouted.  
  
“My grandfather?” asked Nino’s father, even more confused.  
  
“Yeah,” replied the crazy old man, looking haughtily at the Duke and his family. “He was my father, you know?” he confided them with a maniac grin plastered on his wrinkled face. “I was the firstborn, but unfortunately for me I was the son of his mistress.”  
  
Everybody looked shocked at the old secretary, who laughed again. “A few days after my birth, his wife got pregnant and he didn’t hesitate to throw me away to give preference to his second son. After all, who was I? Just the son of his mistress…” he sneered contemptuously.    
  
“B-But my father never told me a thing,” protested the Duke.  
  
“That old goat…or should I say… _my little brother_ ,” mocked the secretary. “I don’t know if he knew something but I doubt it, because he wasn’t in good terms with our father. Nonetheless, after his death a year ago, I found an old diary of the Great Duke when I was going through his documents. There, I learn the truth; how my father had financed my education, and how he had managed to give me a job as his son’s secretary when I graduated… The old man wanted to have everything under control, I suppose,” he chuckled. Then, he fixed his cold eyes, full of hate, on Nino. “It was time to make Justice,” he declared with a resentful glare.  
  
“Murdering my son?” asked the Duke, incredulous.   
  
“Not only him, of course,” replied the old man with a dismissive movement of his free hand. “He simply was a loose end I wanted to left tied up before killing you and the rest of your family,” he commented easily, as if he was talking about something as innocuous as today’s weather.  
  
Everybody gasped, looking horrified at the mad men, while he continued his diatribe.  
  
“And finally, when all the heirs were dead and my relationship with the Great Duke were discovered… _**I**_ would be the Duke! As it should have been from the beginning! MWHAHAHAHAHAHA!”   
  
The maniacal laugh made the occupants of the room shrunk in fear.  
  
Suddenly, the old secretary fixed his eyes on Nino and his friends, “But now everything has been ruined by those brats… my carefully plotted plans… my hopes… EVERYTHING!” he yelled furiously. “I WILL NOT ALLOW IT!”   
  
With the last outraged cry of protest, the crazy man threw the red ball at the floor with fury.


	13. Chapter 13

Nino, frozen in his place, felt a cold hand squeeze his heart in an iron grip as the small bomb crashed on the wooden floor. In slow motion, he saw the bomb break in a million of magical particles. It was the beginning of an unstoppable magical reaction that will vaporize the whole city and its habitants.  
  
They were going to die... all of them…  
  
Those words repeated themselves in his mind in an interminable loop.  
  
In the centre of the broken sphere, a red light began to shine…  
  
It was the end…  
  
Suddenly, a wave of raw magic hit him. Time seemed to stop while he trembled as the waves of magic kept flowing from some point beside him.  
  
Unable to move, Nino felt how the magic pounded him, surrounded him, _caressed_ him... it was almost as if it was alive.  
  
A moment later a dazzling, blue flash blinded him.  
  
When Nino opened his eyes, he realized, astonished, that he was still alive. In front of him, in the place occupied by the secretary just a second before, there was a bubbling hole of melted lava, so blinding that it hurt to look at it. It looked as if something, some kind of powerful magic force, had contained the explosion, restraining it to the small area that the secretary had formerly occupied. What the hell had happened?    
  
Someone screamed Ohno’s name beside him.  
  
Nino whipped his head so fast that almost broke his neck. His eyes widened in horror; Ohno, pale as a sheet, laid unconscious on the floor like a broken doll.  
  
“No… NO!” Nino ran towards the older student, his heart beating painfully in his chest.  
  
Sho, who was already beside Ohno, frantically searched his wrist for pulse. A moment later, his face paled and he hurriedly put his head on Ohno’s chest, trying to hear the unconscious student’s heart.  
  
“His heart doesn’t beat!” the member of the committee sobbed, terrified.  
  
Nino tried to lift Ohno’s head without remembering that his actual form was just an illusion created by one of the first year student’s spell. His hands passed through the head of the pale student as if he was trying to grab the air.  
  
“Ohno!” he wept, desperate. He hurriedly took off the magical cloak, returning to his mouse body, and hugged Ohno’s cold hand. Anxious, he began to use his healing magic, but he was too weak in his actual form.  
  
Suddenly, he noticed other healing magic joining forces with his own. He opened his eyes and found out his mother, gently holding Ohno’s head in her lap, using her healing magic with a determined expression on her face. His father grabbed Ohno’s free hand between his and released his powerful magic, joining forces with his wife and son.  
  
While everybody held their breath, the three healers tried with all their might to revive the unconscious student.  
  
“Damn it, it‘s not working!” the Duke swore, breathing with effort. “Trying to save us, the poor boy has used all his magic, sacrificing his own vital energy to contain the bomb’s destructive power,” he said, wiping away the sweat in his forehead. “I think it’s beyond our power to help him.”  
   
Nino tightened his grip on Ohno’s motionless hand, refusing to believe his father’s words.  
  
Aiba began to cry; his head buried in Jun’s shoulder, while the other student, containing his own tears, tapped his back trying to console him.  
  
“B-But,” protested Sho with trembling voice, “Can’t we do anything to help?”  
  
 “Maybe there is a way…” the Duchess murmured, eyeing Nino’s friends thoughtfully. “Quick! Join your hands!” she urged them, holding out her hand to Jun, the one who was closer to her. “I’ve never tried this before, but we don’t have anything to lose! Let’s try to use everybody’s magic to give him energy!”  
  
Everybody, even Nino’s uncle and his cousin, joined their hands, forming a circle around Ohno’s motionless body. The Duke and the Duchess took Ohno by the hand while Nino hurriedly climbed to Ohno’s chest.  
  
One by one, the Duke looked at the people forming the circle, reading in their eyes the firm intention to help the boy that had risked his life trying to save them.  
  
Closing their eyes, everybody joined their forces and hearts with the sole purpose of saving Ohno.  
  
“Please, live!” wished Nino, fixing his eyes on Ohno’s pale face. “Don’t your dare to leave me now!”  
  
A pale light surrounded Ohno’s body. It began pulsating, painstakingly weak at first but growing stronger with each passing second.”  
  
“Live!!” Nino commanded, desperate, a small tear dropping on Ohno’s unmoving hand.  
  
Suddenly, Ohno’s eyes opened wide as he took a sudden intake of air.  
  
“Oh-chan!” exclaimed Nino, exultant.  
  
“Quick!” The Duchess put both hands around Nino on Ohno’s chest. “Call an ambulance!” she commanded.  
  
Ohno blinked, confused, his eyes slowly scanning the room as if he was searching for something or someone. Finally, he fixed his eyes on the mouse looking worriedly at him.  
  
“Nino…” he whispered with hoarse voice, raising a trembling hand towards the mouse.  
  
Unable to utter a word, the little mouse rubbed his furry head against Ohno’s hand.  
  
~~  
  
_[A month later]_  
  
Ohno opened the door of this bedroom and stopped in the threshold abruptly. The room had changed! He looked around, surprised by the sudden appearance of two sets of furniture: one with the things he brought to the school and other free of personal effects. Maybe he was going to share his bedroom with another student from now on?  
Almost hidden in a corner of the room, he glimpsed a pair of unknown leather suitcases situated beside the free bed - presumably the one belonging to his new room-mate.  
  
Shrugging his shoulders, the first year student entered the room and dropped his small suitcase on his bed. Although it was strange that he had to share his bedroom in the middle of the year and without previous notice from the school, Ohno paid no attention to the new arrangements. He didn’t have time to worry about room arrangements, he needed to find Jun, Aiba or Sho to ask them about Nino.  
  
He sighed, remembering the last time he had seen the other boy. He was lying on a stretcher, fighting against the drowsiness caused by the healing potions the doctors had made him drink, and Nino was in the Duke’s hands, smiling encouragingly at him. The Duke was saying something about trying to change Nino’s back when he had finally lost his battle and closed his eyes, unable to stay awake any longer.   
  
During his long convalescence at home, he hadn’t received a single message about Nino or how the attempts to transform him back into a human were working, and the lack of news worried him greatly. He had sometimes felt tempted to cast a spell to try to communicate with the other student, but his family, really worried about him, had forbidden him the use of magic until he was completely recovered – and they had been watching him like hawks to make sure that he obeyed their orders.  
  
He was about to left the room when someone knocked on the door, startling him. The first year student opened the door and found a young student dressed in white uniform with red motifs waiting.  
  
“Ohno Satoshi?” the young boy asked.  
  
“Yeah,” replied Ohno. Believing that the newcomer was his new room-mate, he opened the door and moved a bit away to let the other student enter the room.  
  
“I’ve got a note for you,” said the student and handed him a folded paper.  
  
Ohno took the note, tilting his head quizzically, and unfolded it.  
  
_“SURPRISE!”_  
  
He frowned and turned over the note; but there was nothing written there. Confused, he raised the eyes to ask the boy but he was already gone.  
  
“What-”  
  
His question was suddenly interrupted when a pair of round and childlike hands covered his eyes.  
  
“Guess who,” a voice whispered sultrily on his right ear.  
  
“Wha!- who!-”  
  
Again, his startled question was interrupted when the stranger turned him around and kissed him full on the lips.  
  
When Ohno opened his eyes a moment later, he found a short, dark haired boy smirking smugly in front of him.  
  
“N-Nino!” exclaimed Ohno with his eyes as big as saucers.  
  
“Yeah, the one and only!” the other boy replied, his smile broadening.  
  
“B-But how? Why-?” Ohno stuttered.  
  
“Don’t worry about little things,” commented Nino, putting an arm around the older boy’s waist and gently pushing him towards the nearest bed. “We have to do something much more important now.”  
  
Ohno, too stunned to offer resistance, let the younger boy position him half-seated on the bed without uttering a single word. When Nino promptly rested his head on his lap, sighing in content, Ohno just blinked at him owlishly.  
  
Time slowly went by. The sound of their breaths was the only sound breaking the silence of the room.  
  
After a few more minutes of waiting without further movement from any of them, the younger boy turned around, facing Ohno, and shot him an expectant glance. “Well?” he softly complained.  
  
“Well, what?” asked Ohno, puzzled, fixing his eyes on Nino‘s face.  
  
“Aren’t you going to pet me?” replied Nino with a small frown. “You have a lot of petting to catch up on,” the younger boy warned him, his frown deepening.  
  
Ohno looked at him open-mouthed.  
  
“But worry not,” added Nino with a smile, soothingly patting Ohno’s knee. “I’ve planned a few things we can do to help you repay your debt much faster,” he added, winking at the older boy mischievously.


End file.
